brown on the outside, orange shag carpet on the inside, overgrown shrubbery, and a guest bathroom decorated with pea-green reflective wallpaper. In my eyes, there was absolutely nothing right with this place, but my mother was in love. It didn’t hurt that the owner of the two-story, four-bedroom, three-bathroom house, with a two-car garage and an attic that was so big the real estate agent said that we could convert it into an apartment, had already bought a new home in Florida and was looking to close immediately.
Whether I liked it or not, we were going to have a new house. A big house, far bigger than our family of three needed. I was determined to look on the bright side. The only redeeming value I could assign the house was its sheer magnitude. I was sure there was no way my dad would be able to find enough paper to fill it all up.
We moved in a couple of weeks later and paid cash for the house, thanks to the payout from the insurance company. Our first night at the house, I unwrapped the new broom and mop that my parents had bought that day, and, true to my promise, I started on chores. They were pretty easy, seeing as how therewas no furniture yet. I swept and mopped our newly acquired kitchen while my parents brought in the few belongings we’d had at Grandma’s and those we’d been stockpiling in our hotel rooms.
“Daddy, you’re not going to make this house messy, right?”
“I’ll try, kiddo.” My dad didn’t like to make promises he couldn’t keep.
NINE
I BELIEVED THAT I COULD rewrite everything about myself after the fire. Third grade started shortly after we moved in, and everything in my life was new: I had new clothes, new shoes, new dolls, a new book bag, and a new house to have friends over to—all I needed was new friends.
I had the fresh start I always wanted, but I was still me. Still shy and barely audible in the presence of anyone my own age, still hyper and gregarious around anyone over thirty. When school started, I was teased for being shy and for being new, and for anything else I dared to be. Being awkward wasn’t new to me, but being teased for it was. When I would come home crying after school, my parents implored me to defend myself. My father taught me the correct way to throw a punch, but told me never to hit anyone unless I thought they were going to hit me first.
“You just need to put one bully in their place, and the rest will stop,” my mom said. But being a kid wasn’t quite as cut-and-dried as she thought. When I tried to stand up for myself, I was teased more, and so I stayed quiet.
I dreaded gym class. I wasn’t particularly athletic, but that wasn’t the reason I hated this quasi-free period. During ourother classes, everyone had to be quiet, and so I had a reprieve from teasing. But in gym, the kids could talk, so they were free to make fun of me. When our gym teacher lined us up against the wall and told us to run the length of the gym while he threw a football our way to catch, I prayed that I might actually catch it.
I’d never played football. I’d never seen a football. I had no idea how to catch a football, but miraculously the first one sent my way found its way into my hands.
Despite my uncharacteristic athletic prowess, there was no amnesty from teasing by the boys in my class. I still said nothing.
“I would shut up, John, she’s doing better than you are,” the girl next to me said when I got back in line. Her name was Carolynn, and she’d never even glanced in my direction before. I smiled. That was as much of a thanks as I could muster, but she stood with me in line as we walked back to class.
“Do you play soccer?” she asked.
“I’ve played a few times,” I lied. I’d never played soccer, but that was just a technicality.
“My dad coaches the Knight Copiers, you should join the team.”
I told my parents that night over dinner that I loved soccer and wanted to join Carolynn’s team. They looked at me like an alien life
Whether I liked it or not, we were going to have a new house. A big house, far bigger than our family of three needed. I was determined to look on the bright side. The only redeeming value I could assign the house was its sheer magnitude. I was sure there was no way my dad would be able to find enough paper to fill it all up.
We moved in a couple of weeks later and paid cash for the house, thanks to the payout from the insurance company. Our first night at the house, I unwrapped the new broom and mop that my parents had bought that day, and, true to my promise, I started on chores. They were pretty easy, seeing as how therewas no furniture yet. I swept and mopped our newly acquired kitchen while my parents brought in the few belongings we’d had at Grandma’s and those we’d been stockpiling in our hotel rooms.
“Daddy, you’re not going to make this house messy, right?”
“I’ll try, kiddo.” My dad didn’t like to make promises he couldn’t keep.
NINE
I BELIEVED THAT I COULD rewrite everything about myself after the fire. Third grade started shortly after we moved in, and everything in my life was new: I had new clothes, new shoes, new dolls, a new book bag, and a new house to have friends over to—all I needed was new friends.
I had the fresh start I always wanted, but I was still me. Still shy and barely audible in the presence of anyone my own age, still hyper and gregarious around anyone over thirty. When school started, I was teased for being shy and for being new, and for anything else I dared to be. Being awkward wasn’t new to me, but being teased for it was. When I would come home crying after school, my parents implored me to defend myself. My father taught me the correct way to throw a punch, but told me never to hit anyone unless I thought they were going to hit me first.
“You just need to put one bully in their place, and the rest will stop,” my mom said. But being a kid wasn’t quite as cut-and-dried as she thought. When I tried to stand up for myself, I was teased more, and so I stayed quiet.
I dreaded gym class. I wasn’t particularly athletic, but that wasn’t the reason I hated this quasi-free period. During ourother classes, everyone had to be quiet, and so I had a reprieve from teasing. But in gym, the kids could talk, so they were free to make fun of me. When our gym teacher lined us up against the wall and told us to run the length of the gym while he threw a football our way to catch, I prayed that I might actually catch it.
I’d never played football. I’d never seen a football. I had no idea how to catch a football, but miraculously the first one sent my way found its way into my hands.
Despite my uncharacteristic athletic prowess, there was no amnesty from teasing by the boys in my class. I still said nothing.
“I would shut up, John, she’s doing better than you are,” the girl next to me said when I got back in line. Her name was Carolynn, and she’d never even glanced in my direction before. I smiled. That was as much of a thanks as I could muster, but she stood with me in line as we walked back to class.
“Do you play soccer?” she asked.
“I’ve played a few times,” I lied. I’d never played soccer, but that was just a technicality.
“My dad coaches the Knight Copiers, you should join the team.”
I told my parents that night over dinner that I loved soccer and wanted to join Carolynn’s team. They looked at me like an alien life
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