Free Watch Me by Norah McClintock Page A

door behind me and stood on the porch for a moment, breathing hard. Neil must have decided to come after me because I heard my mom shout, “Neil, please! Leave him be.”
    Then I heard Neil say, “You can’t let him get away with that type of behavior. It’s time he learned—”
    I ran down the front walk. I wanted to get as far from Neil as possible. I hated him.
    Once I was outside, I pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt. I always wear it up when I’m not at school so that people can’t stare at me. I’d wear my hood up at school too, if it wasn’t against the rules. I hate being stared at.
    I walked down the street as fast as I could. I hated my stupid so-called birthday present. I hated Neil and the way he called me Sport. I hated that my mom thought he was such a great guy. And I really hated that she had made my dad move out. That happened about a year after I saved my dad’s life. He would have died, burned up in a fire, if it hadn’t been for me. The whole thing was written up in the newspaper. It was on TV too. They said I was a hero. But being a hero isn’t as great as you might think. For one thing, I was in the hospital for a long time and ended up with big ugly scars on one whole side of my body. The worst were the ones on the side of my neck and face. I missed a lot of school. When I finally went back, kids didn’t treat me like a hero. They treated me like a freak because of all the scars. Plus I was way behind everyone else. I hate school. I hate phys-ed class. Sometimes I feel like I hate everything.

chapter two
    â€œNeil’s a jerk,” Drew said the next day. “Forget about him.”
    â€œEasy for you to say,” I said. “You don’t have to see his ugly face everyday.”
    â€œTrue,” Drew said. “Hey, I have to drop something off at my mom’s work after school. You want to come?”
    Drew’s mom works at a bank on the other side of town. I didn’t particularly want to go, but I had nothing better to do. Besides, Drew has been my best friendsince he transferred to my school the year before last. He never makes fun of me. He never says anything about how I look—
ever
. He asked me about it one time, but he asked nicely, like he was just wondering, not like he thought I was some kind of freak. And when I answered, that was the last I heard of it. He never brought it up again. He never teases me about wearing my hood up all the time, and he doesn’t try to pull it off me the way some guys do. As soon as school is over, and I pull up my hood, he puts on his baseball cap. He always grins at me when he does. It makes me feel like we’re kind of the same, like we have our own way of doing things once the final bell rings. That’s why I feel relaxed around him.
    We rode the bus across town and then walked a couple of blocks to the bank.
    â€œI’m not sure how long I’m going to be,” Drew said. “It’s old-lady day, so there might be a lineup.”
    â€œOld-lady day?”
    Drew explained that a lot of seniors live in the neighborhood where his mom works.Once a month, when their pension checks are deposited into their accounts, they trek to the bank to stand in line to take their money out.
    â€œMy mom says they don’t like to use the instant teller,” Drew said. “And a lot of them live alone. So they stand in line to take out their money and to talk to the teller. My mom says sometimes that’s the only conversation they have all day.”
    It sounded pretty sad to me.
    â€œI’ll wait for you out here,” I said.
    Drew went inside. I hung out on the corner and watched one old lady after another come out of the bank. They all had grey hair and they all had purses hooked over their arms. Seven or eight of them came out while I waited for Drew. They all crossed at the light on the corner and walked toward the high-rise apartment buildings a