The Revealers by Doug Wilhelm

Author:Doug Wilhelm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2012-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

Sometime that night, two kids sent us messages:

These guys make fun of me all the time because most of my friends happen to be girls. They say I’m gay, which I am not. They say I like to wear girl clothes, which I do not. They say I’m really a girl, which I am NOT. I wish I could beat the crap out of them, but I can’t.

There’s this kid—I’ll call him Pugsley (not his real name). He sits behind me in one of my classes, and he just pokes me. He pokes me and pokes me, he does it with a pen in my back so nobody can see. He even does it during tests. I’ll be sitting there trying to concentrate and he’ll go, poke. Poke. Poke. He also spies over my shoulder at anything I’m doing or looking at. He tries to find out what’s important to me so he can trash it.

I liked to wear this hat. (If I told you which hat it is, you’d know who I am.) I couldn’t wear it in school, of course, but one time Pugsley saw me drawing a picture of myself with my hat on. That was my mistake (he knew it mattered). Then on Hat Day I made the mistake of bringing (not even wearing) my hat. When we were in class and I got called to the board my backpack was under my desk, open, and he stole my hat. At the end of class it wasn’t there. I looked all over for it, my hat! But it was gone. When we got out for recess Pugsley was wearing it.

I said, Give it back. He said, No way, loser! This is my hat! (He was smiling at me.) I said, Give it! I tried to get it but he kept dancing away. I’m pretty small and I couldn’t reach it. Then a bunch of kids came and got in a circle, with us in the middle. Pugsley said, You want this hat? You want this hat? And he sailed it over my head across the circle. Then another kid picked it up just before I did, and sailed it out of my reach again. Then everybody was doing it and laughing.

Finally the bell rang. Pugsley got the hat one more time and threw it in a mud puddle, and he kicked mucky water on it. Then he stomped on it. I took my hat home and washed it, but it was never really the same hat again. I never took it to school again either. I don’t actually wear it much at all anymore.

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