Don't Judge Me by Lisa Schroeder

Author:Lisa Schroeder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

I found Aaron’s initials, A. A. for Aaron Adams, throughout the notebook. On my page, he was the one who’d written “Literally the worst.” On other pages, he’d written things like, “Such a dog” and “So ugly, I bet her brother wouldn’t even kiss her.”

And, just as I’d suspected, his handwriting matched the writing on the note. It made me so mad. Like, why me? Why did he decide to pick on me? What had I ever done to him? Nothing. I was new to the school. New to band. I was a sixth-grade girl who was so shy, I hardly ever spoke to anyone in that class. It really didn’t make sense why he’d chosen me.

I was pretty sure I’d found Preston’s initials and comments, too. No surprise, these boys who were mean to people at school every day were also mean to girls in writing. I grabbed one of my journals and wrote a haiku.

When dark clouds appear,

take them as a strict warning—

the rain is coming.

With all that out of the way, I set the notebooks down and jumped off my bed with a loud thump. It shook the whole room and made me laugh. I’d gone right upstairs when I’d come home, so now I needed to go back to the kitchen for Pip’s afternoon snack. But when I went to check on him, I saw something I hadn’t seen since I’d brought him home. He’d tucked his legs and head in so all I could see was the shell.

“What’s going on?” I asked him, kneeling down and petting his shell as I did. “Oh no, did I scare you?”

Obviously, he didn’t answer me. He didn’t do anything. It was so strange to see his shell like that. It almost seemed like he was … dead. No head. No stumpy tail. No cute little turtle feet. It was so sad!

“Pip?” I said. I leaned closer and I could see his little beady eyes inside the shell.

“Pip, please don’t be scared. I’m sorry if you thought I was a big animal coming to eat you. I’d never eat you! And I’m not a large animal, even if sometimes I think being an elephant would be much better than being a human.”

How long did a tortoise stay hidden when they were scared? I wondered.

I leaned back and waited. As I sat there, watching him, this strange feeling washed over me. It was like I was watching … myself. Shy. Afraid. Hidden in my shell most of the time.

Was that how I really wanted to be? Afraid of everything? Afraid to do anything? Just a shell of a person, walking around, angry about how things are but not doing anything about it?

“Please come out, Pip,” I said softly as I gently stroked his shell. “Please? I’m so sorry. I really am.”

That’s when I started to cry. I didn’t want to. I didn’t even know why I was crying. It wasn’t because Pip was hiding. He’d come out eventually, I knew. But I wanted things to be different.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.