“I have to say, that is genius.” I smiled at her. “Genius.”
She groaned. “No, not that nickname again! But if you like the idea, Mimi said she’d love to help us. She’s good with costumes, right, Hazel?”
Last year she’d helped Tori and I make two long, comfy shirts for our costumes, one that said NETFLIX and one that said CHILL. Everyone who saw us thought it was the cutest thing.
“You guys,” Dion said, “what if I hate mice? Like, really, really hate them?”
“Why?” I asked. “They’re just little rodents with cute ears. They don’t hurt anyone.”
Dion kind of grimaced. “That’s not exactly true. See, we were at the grocery store one time and my little brother had to pee really bad. So my mama asked me to take him back to the restroom. Well, you had to go through these double doors into this big storage-type room and there was a mouse sitting there and before I could stop him, Kalen bent down to pet the mouse and it latched onto his finger.”
“Oh no,” Tori said. “It bit him?”
“Yep. Swelled up so bad, he had to go to the doctor and get a shot and stuff. Oh, but that’s not the best part. The best part was that he’d flicked his finger in the air to get the mouse off and it’d flown across the room. Well, a bunch of the workers at the store had to try and find the thing because they wanted to check and see if it had rabies.”
“Did they find it?” I asked.
“Yeah, it was dead. They think it ate some poison and was half dead when we found it. That’s why it didn’t run away when it saw us. Anyway, you can see why I don’t like mice, right?”
“But we’ll be cute mice,” Tori said.
“That don’t bite,” I added.
He held his hands up, like he was surrendering. “Okay, okay, mice it is.”
“We have a lot to look forward to, don’t we?” Tori said cheerily.
Right, there was plenty to look forward to—a talent show I wasn’t talented enough for, a notebook I didn’t know what to do with, and a tortoise that would probably be leaving me. I wished I could feel happy like Tori, but even with a fun Halloween costume, what I mostly felt was worried.
Saturday morning, before our soccer game, Ms. Lennon called me. “Hazel, I hope you’re going to be happy to know that I’ve decided to take your tortoise!”
Tears filled my eyes and I wasn’t sure if they were happy tears or sad. A little bit of both, I guess. There was no one I trusted more than Ms. Lennon. But I would miss him so, so much.
“Really?” I managed. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. The other teachers assured me it won’t be hard and between all of us, we believe we can give Pip a good home for many years to come.”
“Thank you so much, Ms. Lennon.”
“Well, thank you for trusting me with him. Now, I’m wondering if it might be possible for you to bring him to the school Monday morning? I’m going to get everything he needs this weekend, so I’ll be ready. And since middle school starts an hour later than the elementary school, I thought first thing in the morning might work the best?”
“Okay. I think my dad can bring me,” I said. “He usually works from home on Mondays.”
“Wonderful. I’ll see you then. Thanks, Hazel. Goodbye.”
“Bye.”
I rushed out of my room to tell my parents, who were at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the paper. The kitchen smelled good, like cinnamon. Mom was probably baking muffins or banana bread.
They were thrilled with the news, and Dad said he’d be happy to take me to deliver the class’s new pet Monday morning.
“I hope she’s reading everything she can about tortoises,” I said as I sat at the table.
“I’m sure she is,” Mom said. “She’s smart and compassionate, which means she’ll want to do the best she can for Pip.”
“Do you think she’ll keep his name?” I asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Dad said.
“Maybe she’ll want the kids to name him,” I said.
Mom shook her head. “The problem with that is she’d have twenty-five different opinions and every child would think their idea was the best. It’s much easier to keep the one he has now, right?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I hope so. I can’t imagine calling him something else. She won’t mind if I visit him once in a while, will she?”
Mom got up and went to the oven as the timer went off. “I’m sure she’d love that, Hazel.”
I watched as she pulled the pan out of the oven.
“Banana bread?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said. “Need to let it cool for a few minutes, then I’ll cut into it.”
“I’m glad he’ll have a good home,” I told them. “But it’s going to be hard to say goodbye.”
And what if I couldn’t do it? What if I got there and giving Pip up was just too hard? I mean, every day when I came home, no matter how bad of a day it was, he was there, ready to sit with me and listen to what I had to say. I was going to miss that. A lot.
“Don’t think of it as goodbye,” Dad said with a smile. “Think of it as sending him on vacation. A nice vacation where he’ll meet lots of people who are going to make sure he has the best life possible.”
“They better be good to him,” I said. “Ms. Lennon said she has a bullying problem. I don’t want them to pick on poor Pip.”
“She’s trying to teach them to look beyond themselves, I think,” Mom said. “That’s a good lesson, for sure.”
“But what if some of the kids don’t want to learn that lesson?” I asked.
“They’re not going to hurt a helpless tortoise,” Dad said.
I wanted to tell him that lots of kids are helpless, too, but that doesn’t stop the bullying. Except if I said that, they’d probably think I was talking about myself and get really worried. I didn’t want that.
“I hope so” is all I said as I stood up. “I’m gonna go get ready. Can I have some bread in the car, Mom?”
“Yes,” she said. “But not too much. Don’t want you to get sick.” She got up and reached for my water bottle on the counter. “And here. Hydrate!”
I took a long drink. “Happy?”
She broke out in a silly dance as she sang, “So happy. So happy. Hydration makes me happy!”
“Good one, Mom. Maybe you should perform in our school’s talent show in December.”
Her eyes got big. “Ooh, fun! I love talent shows. Are you … ?” Her voice trailed off. “Never mind. Go get ready so we can head out.”
“Actually, I am,” I said. “My new friend, Dion, and I agreed to sign the song that Tori’s going to sing. And probably dance a little, too. I don’t know, maybe I’ll chicken out, but for now, that’s the plan.”
Mom came over and gave me a hug. “So proud of you. And that’s all I’m going to say. Go get ready.”
* * *
When we got to the field, my teammates were warming up. I threw my bag on the ground next to my parents, who were setting up chairs with all the other grown-ups.
“Have a good game, Hazel!” I heard Jeanie yell.
I waved as I ran out to join my team. From the other side of the field, away from all the parents, I heard a familiar voice yell, “You going to try stealing the ball today, Hazel? ’Cause you’re good at that, right? Stealing?”
I didn’t turn around. I knew it was Ben, and I knew he wanted to rattle me. I had to try my best to ignore him.
Except I couldn’t. I knew he was watching me. I knew he was ready to pounce again when he had the chance. He’d try to get me to admit I took the notebook. How much longer could I pretend that I didn’t? How much longer could I act like everything was fine when everything was not fine?
When the game started, we got the ball right away and one of our best players, Monique, passed it to me and I took it down the field and tried to pass it to Tori, but an opponent stole it from me and took off with it. I glanced over at Ben. He was smiling.
We lost the game, and I was furious. The soccer field has always felt like a second home to me—a place where I could just be myself and get lost in the game. Usually, everything else in the world faded away except for me and the ball and the players on the field. But not today.
I went straight home to spend every minute I could with Pip. I took about a hundred pictures over the weekend and practically cried with every one. Did he even realize how much he’d helped me?
He’d shown me that curling up into a shell and being afraid all the time was no way to live. It was because of him that I’d decided to get the notebook away from Ben. Even if I had no idea what to do with it now, I was proud of the fact that I’d done it. And it was all thanks to Pip.
As I cried next to his box Sunday night, I asked, “Even if you don’t live with me, we can be friends for the next seventy or eighty years, can’t we?”
Like always, he just stared at me. But I swear his little mouth curved up into a smile, ever so slightly.
Monday morning, Dad helped me carry the box to the car. After we got in, he said, “You okay?”
“I think so,” I said. “I hope I don’t cry in front of everyone.”
“It’s okay to cry,” he said as he backed out of the driveway. “They’ll understand.”
“Dad, I wish, but that’s not how it works.”
“How do you know?” he asks. “Do you cry a lot at school?”
I almost said, “No, but only because I tell myself not to.” Instead I just said, “No. But people aren’t always as nice as you think.”
“When I was fifteen,” he said, “I was in a band with a few friends and a lady hired us to play at her daughter’s sweet sixteen party. We’d put flyers around town and she’d seen one of them and thought it’d be fun to have a real band for the party. So we got up there on the little makeshift stage and, Hazel, I was so nervous, I vomited. Right there. In front of everyone. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I started crying after that.”
“Whoa,” I said. “That sounds … horrible.”
“It really was. We’d never played in front of anyone before. We’d just practiced in a basement. We hadn’t considered that maybe it would be nerve-racking to play for an audience.”
“Were people mad?” I asked. “Like, the lady who hired you—what did she say?”
He stopped at a light. Little kids were walking to school. I felt a pain in my chest because I wished that were still me.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” he said. “Everyone was so incredibly kind about it. They got the stage cleaned up, got me some ginger ale, and thirty minutes later, my friends and I were back on that stage, playing our hearts out. It’ll be okay, Hazel. There are good people in the world. Please, never forget that.”
I looked out the window and tried really hard not to roll my eyes. Why can’t parents understand that sometimes you just need them to say, “I’m sorry you’re feeling that way,” and then stop?
He parked the car and then took the box out of the back seat. We walked into the school along with some kids. The cafeteria was right by the front doors, so the scents of sausages and cinnamon rolls drifted out to greet us. My heart ached as we walked down the hall. It felt so familiar but also a little bit strange. I didn’t belong here anymore, no matter how much I wished I did. I was a sixth grader now. Middle school was supposed to be my place, but it felt like I’d never love it even half as much as I’d loved Hoover.
On the last day of fifth grade, Ms. Lennon had called us up to her desk, one by one, to give us a book she’d picked out for each of us. She’d given me the book The Poet’s Dog, about an Irish wolfhound who lives in the woods and can talk, but only children and poets can understand him.
“Since you’re now a poet, I think you’ll love this book,” she’d told me. “I know it’s short and doesn’t look like much, but trust me, it’s a sweet, tender story, and I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did.”
And I had. But even more than the story, I treasured the message Ms. Lennon had written on the inside cover:
Dear Hazel,
May you never forget the value that words have in our lives. And may you keep writing, because the world surely needs more of your words, especially.
Love,
Ms. Lennon
Sometimes I wished that I could have stayed in fifth grade forever. And I hated feeling that way. I wanted to be like Tori—excited about growing up and everything that came with it. That feeling had to hit me someday. Didn’t it?
“Hazel, hi! Look, it’s me!”
I looked down and saw my kindergarten buddy from last year. Our class would get together with his every couple of weeks and read books together. “Hey, River, how are you?”
“Good. Are coming back to this school?” He fiddled with one of the drawstrings on his sweatshirt. “Because I’m in a new room. I’m in first grade now!”
“I know,” I said. “That’s so exciting. I’m at the middle school now, but I came to see Ms. Lennon for a little bit. Are you reading lots of good books this year?”
His brown eyes sparkled as he said, “Yep! I can read a lot by myself now.”
“Cool,” I said as I put my hand out for a high five, which he happily gave me. “See you later, okay?”
He waved and said, “Okay, bye,” as he turned and went into Mr. Knight’s room. I peeked in and oh my gosh, the chairs and tables looked so tiny.
It was like Dad could read my mind. “Hard to believe you used to be that small, huh?”
“Yeah” was all I could manage. How ridiculous was it that I actually felt jealous of a first grader?
Dad continued walking and I followed. We turned down a second hallway. Ms. Lennon’s room was the last one on the left.
Walking into that classroom felt like going home. But knowing I couldn’t stay for long was like a punch in my stomach. I looked around and took everything in. The wall of books I used to love to explore. The haiku she’d written on the whiteboard. And the nice, new wooden home with a heat lamp on one end, all set up for Pip.
“Good morning, Hazel,” Ms. Lennon said as she stood up from her desk. “So good to see you. And hello, Mr. Wallace. Thanks so much for doing this.”
“Happy to do it,” Dad said.
I took a deep breath and told myself to be strong. “His house looks amazing. Pip is going to love it.”
“I have a smaller one at my place as well. That way I can take him home with me on the weekends.” She went to the box still in my dad’s hands and peered in. “Oh, isn’t he a beauty. Wow. Hazel, would you like to stay and hear me introduce Pip to the students?”
I looked at Dad. “Is that all right?”
He nodded. “You bet.”
Ms. Lennon got me a chair and set it by her desk. Dad put the box on the floor behind me, so the students wouldn’t be able to see into it easily.
“The children are going to have a lot of questions when they come in, but I’m going to tell them to sit in their seats so I can share what’s going on with everyone.”
“Good plan,” Dad said.
Ms. Lennon smiled. “We’ll see if it works. Sometimes it’s like herding cats, you know.”
She went to the door and with every student, she greeted them and said she had a surprise she would share as soon as they were all in their seats. Everyone pointed or gasped at the sight of Pip’s house. As they spoke to their classmates, they tried to guess what kind of animal might go in there. Some of the guesses I heard were snakes, frogs, hamsters, rats, and even a bearded dragon.
When the entire class was seated, Ms. Lennon stood up and said, “Good morning, everyone. This is Hazel Wallace. She was one of my students last year. And she’s brought our class something really special. For the first time ever, this room is going to have a class pet.”
The kids pumped their fists in the air and cheered. As I looked out at their faces, I could tell they were super excited.
Ms. Lennon looked at me and said, “Hazel, can you introd
uce us to Pip? Please stay in your seats until we’re done. Then I’ll give everyone a chance to say hello to our new friend.”
I reached behind the chair and picked up Pip. Then I held him gently, extending my hands out a bit so everyone could see. “Pip is very happy to meet you,” I said. And then came lots of comments.
“It’s a turtle!”
“A tortoise, I think.”
“He’s so cute!”
“Why’s he named Pip?”
Ms. Lennon let them chatter a little before she quieted them down again. Then she said, “Children, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that having a pet is a big responsibility. He’ll rely on us to feed him, to keep his cage clean, and to show him love and kindness. Always. This is not my class pet, this is our class pet. Understand?”
Most of them nodded their heads while a couple shouted, “Yes!”
“I want you to imagine,” Ms. Lennon said, “what it must be like for him to be here, in this new place, with a classroom full of children and not in a natural habitat.” She stopped for a moment. “Do you think he might be a little scared?”
They nodded again.
“One of the most important things I can teach you this year is that every creature, human or otherwise, deserves to be treated with kindness, empathy, and respect. We’ve been talking about those words and what they mean, so I hope you remember. Pip is counting on us to be the very best humans we can be.
“See, the trouble with turtles is that the hard shell gives the illusion that they can’t be hurt. But it’s not true. In fact, their shells have nerve endings, so they can feel things. Sometimes we try to pretend that our actions or words won’t hurt anyone, but of course they do. And I will not tolerate anyone treating our precious class pet with anything other than kindness. No poking his shell. No hitting his shell. Nothing but gentle hands all the time. Okay?”
As I sat there, holding Pip close to my heart, I thought about the jerks at my middle school. Every day, they did what Ms. Lennon was talking about—pretended that their actions or words didn’t hurt others. But they did. They hurt a lot. And even worse? They got away with it over and over again.
Don't Judge Me Page 10