I didn’t really want to talk to Sofie even though she’s really, really nice. I just wanted to be alone and keep quiet, but I didn’t want to be alone either. It’s kind of hard to explain. I tried turning my knees away from Sofie so she would get the hint, but she broke the silence anyways.
She turned her head and said “I like your shoes” like she meant it. You should know that my shoes aren’t anything special. They’re just white with green laces. I tried ignoring her, but then she said, “Do you want some of my lemonade?” and she held her red cup closer to me. Don’t judge me, but I decided to reach for it. When I turned around, I noticed that Sofie and I actually had matching scraped knees. You didn’t hear any of this from me, though. Word gets around fast and pretty much everyone who was at that dang slumber party is also in Mr. B’s class with me this year.
Yesterday, on our first day of school, I was just hoping to hide behind my notebooks all day long, make things easier for everybody. But that didn’t work for me at all. Instead, Mr. B gave us our first big lesson. He tried to teach us the important lesson of walking into a room with more confidence. Courtney’s big sister had warned us about this if we got Mr. B for the fifth grade, but it sounded way less scary back when I had my friends. How am I supposed to walk into a room with confidence if nobody wants me there? Do you know what I mean?
It was bad. We all had to stand as straight as we could along the white brick wall, taking turns leaving and coming back to the classroom with our hands on our hips. Mr. B shouted, “EXPAND!” and wrote it in all capital letters in the top corner of the chalkboard that never gets washed away. He then said, “You can become bigger than this room.” How the heck am I supposed to “EXPAND!” when everyone cool now uses bubble-letters and makes themselves into small groups under backyard trampolines? A lot of the other kids in my class crossed their arms and looked nervous to try their walks, but I still think that they all had better walks than I did.
I’m starting to think that people only were ever nice to me because I used to be the new kid at school from White Pine. When I was brand-new, everybody wanted to say hi when I walked into the room. Now I’m just regular, or maybe even less than regular. I could tell Sofie had a hard time with her walk too. We both had to do it three or four times until we could look up from the floor. I hope nobody noticed that she and I have that in common. If people didn’t already think that I’m weird, they are for sure going to think that now, right? Actually, please don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.
I will say that Dylan Beaman walked so confidently in the first round. He moved slow and steady in his Red Wings jersey. His posture was all the way straight and his shoes lit up too. I wish you could have seen it. My old friends sure did talk about him a lot, so I feel pretty lucky that Dylan and my last names are close to each other in the alphabet and so our assigned seats are right next to each other. It made it a little easier not to hide behind my notebook all day long or anything like that.
When Dylan Beaman got to his desk today, he pulled out his folder that has a lightning bolt on it and said “Hi.” He really did say hi to me. I thought about telling him that I like storms too. Instead, I fixed my headband and made sure all my freshly sharpened pencils were lined up perfectly in rainbow order. I just hope I didn’t totally blow my chance of getting another “Hi” from Dylan Beaman this week. Maybe one day, my confident walk will be as good as his. That way, Dylan will see it and realize that maybe we have a lot in common, even though my paper folders are just plain-colored and my shoes don’t light up.
When did the word hi get so hard. Why did walking get so hard? Maybe there is something wrong with me after all. I just wish Courtney didn’t always fold her arms when she looks at me now. We didn’t even say hi to each other, and we have already had two whole entire days of school. We haven’t spoken ever since I blew it at her stupid slumber party. I wonder if I will be invited to one ever again.
If you still have your friends, maybe you can give me some ideas on how to get mine back. Even though we’re now in fifth grade, my old BFFs look pretty enough to be in middle school. All three of them crimped their hair like cowgirls for the first week of school. I didn’t even think to do that. I’m starting to think that I should pretend my parents went to college or moved to Houghton from somewhere fancy, like Milwaukee or Lansing. Maybe I should pretend to be a girl again. I don’t know. For now, I guess it’s good that all our last names are so different and so all of those girls sit in different parts of the classroom.
It’s also good that Mr. B has so many inspiration posters in his class, because I have somewhere to put my eyes when I feel anybody looking at me now. One of the posters says Do your personal best, and another one has a big rainbow on it. My favorite poster has a big picture of cheese, but I can’t exactly remember what it says. Sofie’s seat is actually right under that one. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but she turned around and waved to me just as our very first class was starting. Nobody else saw it, I think. I just looked down at my Little Mermaid Band-Aid and wondered if Sofie’s knees had already healed.
If I could make my own inspiration poster, it would say It’s more fun on top of the trampoline anyways because that’s where you can jump, pretend you’re an astronaut, or have a flat place to draw all the things you can see from real high up. I’ll draw a picture of my poster in this letter for you. That way, you can hang it up where you need inspiration or maybe just use the paper to make a hat if you hate your haircut. Mine’s growing funny too. I didn’t get a haircut this summer, but I did get more secrets. I can’t tell them to you right now, but maybe someday soon.
If you find this balloon letter, please leave your response buried under the WELCOME TO HOUGHTON: BIRTHPLACE OF NATIONAL HOCKEY sign next to Portage Bridge. You can’t miss it. I’ll check there tomorrow or the next day. I love getting mail, even though it hardly ever happens.
Sincerely,
Ellie Beck
Tuesday, September 9, 1997
Hi again,
Good news, I found a quarter on the floor in the cafeteria today. I put it in my pocket right away and used it to buy a balloon at that blue gas station kitty-corner from the Family Videos. The cashier’s name is Björn. He asked me, “Is it your birthday?” It’s not, but I do think balloons are a nice way to celebrate something even if nobody else does. There’s hardly anyone ever in that store, so I bet he was just trying to make some nice conversation. Anyways, I hope you get this letter just when you needed someone to say hi to you too.
I hate to ask this, but are you thinking about people you miss? I am all the time.
My friends and I all used to draw together at lunchtime. We would make flowers and clouds, and Gina even showed us how to do cool-shaped S’s and even 3-D boxes. I spent most of my time at lunch today drawing on my yellow foam tray alone. I mentioned in my last letter that I would share a secret, so here it goes. It’s a really good drawing secret. My go-to doodles are jellyfish and wheels of Swiss cheese. They might seem really different from each other, but in drawing them they actually look exactly the same. The only real difference is that one of them has arms that reach down into the water. The other one just stays a circle.