Iknew fifth grade was going to be different the minute I stepped onto the playground that first day.
In our town, there were two huge elementary schools. The kids went to Marian Johnson Primary School from pre-K through fourth grade and then moved onto Herbert Andrews Elementary from fifth through seventh grade. It was cool to change schools, I guessed, but in a way, it meant we all started over three times before we graduated from high school, because there was also a junior high. We went from being the big men on campus back to the bottom of the barrel three times.
So when I stepped onto the newly-recovered asphalt at Herbert Andrews—everyone called it the HA school—I had to admit, I was a little nervous. At MJ Primary, I was a pretty popular kid. At least I had a lot of friends, and the teachers liked me. I didn’t know how it happened, but I was able to get good grades and not be labeled as some kind of dork. I think it was mostly because we hadn’t gotten to the point of labeling each other. We’d all been together since kindergarten—or pre-K, for some of us—and there was a kind of sweet acceptance that was doomed to end.
I saw it slipping away almost immediately on the first day of fifth grade. I was still standing on the edge of the playground, kind of taking everything in, when I noticed a cluster of kids over to my left, standing just beyond the swings. They weren’t just hanging out; I saw a few glancing carefully over their shoulders, watching out for teachers or other adults just the same way my dog looked when he was getting into the trash.
I was curious, and I wandered over that way. I recognized a couple of classmates from fourth grade. But as I got closer, my heart sank. In the middle of the crowd, looking more confused and frightened than I’d ever seen him, was Nate.
Nate had always been smaller than me. His arms were thin and gangly, and his face had a pointed look that had been cute during kindergarten but now only had the effect of making him seem hunted. His hunched shoulders made it worse.
He was surrounded by five boys who all towered at least two heads above him. They were grinning, but not in a ‘hey, let’s all go play ball’ way. I saw one of them reach out and shove against Nate’s shoulder. Always just a little unsteady, he teetered for a moment, but to my relief, kept to his feet.
I was close enough now to hear their voices, the jeering. And for a minute, less time than it took me to realize I was thinking it, I was tempted to just turn around. Turn my back and pretend that I hadn’t seen it, hadn’t seen Nate in the middle of that mess.
I wouldn’t have done it. I was really sure about that. But before I could prove it—to myself or anyone else, I guess—a blue tornado streaked past me.
“Hey! Get away from him. What are you doing?” Her voice ringing with the righteous indignation of the young, Quinn pushed through the little knot of boys and stood in front of Nate. With hands on her hips and curly brown hair flying in every direction, she stood only a little taller than Nate, but she stared up at the boys with fury and challenge.
The biggest of them looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and annoyance. “Leave it alone. Go back and play with the little girls. We’re just welcoming our new buddy to HA.”
“You’re all bullies.” Quinn always did cut right to the chase. “You’re mean, and you’re stupid and you want to hurt Nate just because he’s different from you. Go away. Leave him alone, or I’ll go get a teacher.”
I held my breath, waiting to see what the boys would do. I saw them exchange glances, and then the leader shrugged. “Whatever. You’re not going to be around all the time. We’ll catch up with him later.” Turning, he stalked off, pushing through the swings and sending them flying.
The other boys melted off, leaving Quinn and Nate standing together, alone. I stalked over, ready to yell at Quinn for getting in the middle of that, when she turned and spotted me.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “Didn’t you see what was happening? They were going to hurt Nate!”
“I—I was—” I looked at Nate, my eyes pleading for some back up, but he was just staring off into the distance, beyond Quinn, beyond me.
“I was heading over here,” I finished lamely.
“Yeah, by the time you got here, they would have pushed him down and gotten in some good punches. What were you waiting for?”
“I don’t know.” I pushed a hand through the hair my mom had so carefully combed an hour ago. “It just happened so fast. I saw it was Nate, and then before I could even get in there, you ran past me.”
“It shouldn’t have mattered who it was. They were big kids, picking on someone smaller. You should have stopped them no matter who it was. But then when you saw it was your friend—” Quinn glared at me meaningfully. “Yourbestfriend since before you were born, you should have run to stop them.”Like I did. She didn’t say it, but I could read it loud and clear in her eyes.
“Nate.” I could see I wasn’t going to get anywhere with Quinn, so I turned to the small boy hunched between us. “What happened? Why were they ganged up on you?”
He shrugged, still not meeting our eyes. “Mom dropped me off early,” he finally answered, softly. “I asked her to. I thought I could get in here and look around, be ready when you guys got here. I was just sitting on the bars over there.” He jerked his chin toward the rainbow climber, now covered with kids. “But then I saw there was an empty swing, and I thought I would grab it for Quinn.” At last he looked up at her. “I know you like to swing.”
Quinn sighed, the merest breath. “I do like to swing. Thanks for thinking of me, Nate.”
He nodded and continued. “I was just trying to get across the playground to them, and then this one kid grabbed me, and the next thing I knew, they were all standing around.” He swung his eyes up to me. “Matt was there, too. Did you see that, Leo?”
I sighed, but I didn’t say anything. Matt Lampert had been in our class last year, and he had hung around with Nate and me. I would’ve said we were friends. I hadn’t seen him over the summer, but that wasn’t unusual; his family lived on the other side of town and belonged to the community pool, which was where he spent most of his days between school years.
“Why do kids act like that?” Quinn stomped her foot against the concrete and winced. I tried to hide a smile, but she looked at me and rolled her eyes. She had a tendency to strike out physically, forgetting that hitting hard surfaces hurt.
“They’re just ... I don’t know. Stupid, like you said, I guess.” Nate still seemed far away, and I gave him a light punch on the shoulder to get his attention. He turned his bright blue eyes to me, and I flinched at the pain there.
“You okay, Nate?” Quinn stole my line and laid a tentative hand on his arm. To my surprise, he shrugged it off. I hadn’t ever seen Nate rebuff Quinn’s affection—not ever.
“You shouldn’t have gotten in the middle of it,” he said in a low voice. “Now it’s only going to be worse. They’re going to think I’m a wimp, that I have to count on agirlto protect me.”
Quinn raised her eyes to mine. She was surprised and not a little hurt. “I’m sorry, Nate. I thought...I didn’t want you to get hurt.” She bit her lip and added, “I know if it had been me they were picking on, you would have stopped it.”
