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    Everyday Hero
    Everyday Hero
    Everyday Hero
    Ebook122 pages2 hours

    Everyday Hero

    By Kathleen Cherry

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    About this ebook

    Alice doesn’t like noise, smells or strangers. She does like rules. Lots of rules.

    Nobody at her new school knows she is autistic, and soon Alice finds herself in trouble because the rules here are different. When she meets Megan in detention, she doesn’t know what to make of her. Megan doesn’t smell, she’s not terribly noisy, and she’s not exactly a stranger. But is she a friend? Megan seems fearless to Alice; but also angry or maybe sad. Alice isn’t sure which. When Megan decides to run away, Alice decides that Megan is her friend and that she needs to help her, no matter how many rules she has to break or how bad it makes her feel.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateMar 15, 2016
    ISBN9781459809840
    Everyday Hero
    Author

    Kathleen Cherry

    Kathleen Cherry spends time in northern British Columbia and on Vancouver Island where she works as a school psychologist. Before becoming a psychologist, Kathleen worked as a school counselor as well as teaching English, social studies and special education. Kathleen loves working with children and empowering them to develop their creativity through writing.

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    • 4/5
      A sweet, heartfelt book that takes a frank look at some big issues -- including neurotypicality, being different, drug use, and child abuse. The characters are engaging, the protagonist has a strong voice, and the plot has a compelling message about the power of friendship and being yourself.

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    Everyday Hero - Kathleen Cherry

    Note

    One

    If my mother hadn’t decided to be a sandwich, I would not have had nine detentions in January.

    If I hadn’t had nine detentions in January, I would not have met Megan.

    If I hadn’t met Megan, I would not have been a hero.

    To be accurate, my father said that my mother was part of the sandwich generation. A generation means all the people born and living for a period of approximately thirty years. A sandwich means two slices of bread with a filling (such as meat, fish, cheese, peanut butter) between them.

    I like to define words. I once tried to memorize all the definitions in Webster’s New World Dictionary. I stopped at mineralize.

    I asked Dad what this meant. About Mom being a sandwich, not mineralize. He said it meant that she had to look after her child, me, as well as my grandparents. She is the filling, we are the bread. Truthfully, I am not really a child, being thirteen years, four months and seventeen days old at the time of writing.

    Today is April 23.

    There is something else you need to know about me. I have Asperger Syndrome, so looking after me is harder than looking after the typical teenager. Asperger Syndrome is on the autism spectrum, but people who have it usually function better than most autistic individuals.

    Dad and I arrived in Kitimat on January 2 at 7:37 PM. We moved from Vancouver because Dad got a job. Mom stayed in Vancouver to help my grandparents. My grandma had had a stroke, which Dad said was bad timing.

    I started school in Kitimat on January 4.

    I got my first detention on January 6 when I sat on the stairs at the north end of the school. I like stairs. Sitting on the stairs is not against the rules.

    Except I was supposed to be in gym class.

    This was my first detention. There were only three of us in room 131: Ms. Lawrence, Megan and me. Megan wore black and sat at the back of the class in the second desk from the window.

    (I knew she was called Megan because Ms. Lawrence looked at her and said,Here again, Megan? Then she sighed with a big wheezing whoosh.)

    After that, no one said anything.

    I didn’t say anything. Megan didn’t say anything. Ms. Lawrence didn’t say anything. I wished I could go to detention instead of school.

    ***

    Usually I achieve good grades in school. I love math and science, and I like English and social studies. I write well. My special-education teacher said that people with Asperger Syndrome can be authors. Some people say that James Joyce, Lewis Carroll and George Orwell were autistic.

    I am less competent at speaking though. Thousands of words flood my brain like slippery minnows (this is a simile), and I can’t find the right words in the right order.

    This means I’m usually silent in class.

    Dad once told me that students with Asperger’s are often perfect students. I think this might be true except for the head banging. Plus I used to circle the flagpole at my old school. And I like to sit in corners with the walls pressing against me.

    By the way, having Asperger Syndrome does not mean I can calculate sums, like 431 divided by 92 and multiplied by 5, which is 23.42391304347 8260869565217391304. (I only know this because I used a calculator.) People who can do that are sometimes called savants. I am not a savant.

    On January 8, I got my second detention. I left the change room before gym even started. I left because the change room stank—of wet socks, sweat, antiperspirant, hair gel, hair spray, perfume, hand sanitizer, hand lotion, sunscreen and Febreze.

    I don’t like smells. They make me want to wriggle out of my skin. Or bang my head. Or curl up in a corner.

    So I left. At my elementary school, this was not against the rules, but middle school is different.

    Still, I like detention better than the change room, so I was not upset when I walked into room 131 again.

    Ms. Lawrence sat at her desk. She wore a sweatshirt patterned with flowers.

    Another detention? she said.

    Before I could answer, I heard the heavy, rhythmic clunk…clunk…clunk of footsteps approaching.

    Not again, Ms. Lawrence muttered, looking toward the door.

    Megan was tall. She wore black high-heeled boots, a jean jacket, a black T-shirt with a silver skull on it, and metal chains slung around her neck, waist and wrists. Her long black hair was streaked with purple. She had a silver ring through her bottom lip.

    When she entered, everything in the room seemed smaller.

    Ms. Lawrence pushed her hand through her short gray hair. How long do you have to stay this time, Megan?

    Dunno. Beils sent me.

    "You’re not on his list. He must have forgotten. I will go and ask Mr. Beils." Ms. Lawrence emphasized the word Mister. Then she stood and hurried out of the classroom.

    Whatever. Megan shrugged, and the chains jangled as she walked down the aisle of desks toward me.

    I am very observant. Sometimes that is a problem. There are so many things to notice—colors, noises, smells, sounds…

    And I can’t focus on only one thing and ignore another. I cannot notice the skeleton drawn in red ballpoint on the left sleeve of her jean jacket without seeing also the purple bruise under her left eye, the rip in her shirt and the four silver rings on her left hand. I couldn’t see her right hand.

    What are you looking at? Megan asked, running the words together so they sounded like whatchalookingat.

    You, I said.

    Another thing I should tell you: I can’t lie. It’s not that I don’t want to lie. I’m just no good at it.

    I don’t want any punk kid looking at me. Megan leaned over my desk.

    This made sense. I don’t like people looking at me either.

    "And this is my place," she added, putting her face close to mine.

    Her breath didn’t smell.

    I looked at the desktop. At my school last year, we wrote our names on laminated yellow cards and placed them on the left-hand corner of our desks.

    I couldn’t see any laminated yellow cards in room 131.

    What are you doing? Megan asked, the words again strung together.

    Looking for your name on a laminated yellow card.

    You trying to be funny? She leaned closer to me, her fingers gripping the desktop. Her nail polish was black and chipped.

    No, I said, because that is another thing about me: I don’t understand jokes, so I never try to be funny.

    You looking for a fight?

    No, I said again.

    Megan’s hands balled into fists. Now that I could see her right hand, I noticed that she had a thumb ring shaped like a skull.

    I looked up to see if I could identify her expression. But I am not good at understanding faces, even though my teacher last year gave me a special feelings chart.

    Just keep out of my face! Megan turned and walked out of the room with heavy, clunking footsteps, not even waiting for Ms. Lawrence to come back.

    So I counted dictionaries in the bookcase—fifteen. I like the number three and multiples of three. I like counting. I’d counted the dictionaries three times before Ms. Lawrence finally came back.

    You’re still here? Her eyebrows rose, disappearing under her bangs.

    I nodded.

    "Sorry, there was a problem I

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