Tyler and Chloe and Logan were huddled together, whispering. Then he looked up. “We’re doing a poem.”
“Terrific!” Mrs. Wilson said, handing them a big piece of paper, too. “Please write it up to share with the class.”
I sat down on one of the little chairs and watched Katie and Maya work. They drew a face with a big smile and started adding brown hair.
I thought, My hair is brown. I ran my fingers through it because I wanted it to look good in case it was me they were drawing.
They started working on the neck and arms.
Mrs. Wilson came over to check on us. “How’s it going?”
“Good.” I shrugged. “But they don’t really need any help today,” which made me feel a little weird because I was just sitting there like a bump.
“Awesome!” She smiled.
But it didn’t feel awesome. I was just sitting there, not helping them at all.
As she walked over to see how things were going with Tyler, Katie and Maya added a blue shirt and blue pants to their drawing.
I thought, I’m wearing a blue shirt, and I’m wearing jeans! They did choose me!
I felt so good that I wanted to hug them. But they were hunched over busy, so instead I just said, “That looks great! Do you need help writing the name of the person at the bottom of the poster?”
Katie shook her head. “We already know how to write it.” Which of course they would, since Jordie had been on the Study Buddy bulletin board for two weeks.
Then Katie wrote Mrs.
And that’s when I noticed that Mrs. Wilson was wearing a blue shirt and blue pants, and her hair was brown, too.
Maya wrote Wilson, and she started so big that she had to curve the word around and run it down the side of the page, but it still fit. And then it was time to present to the class.
Mrs. Wilson asked Tyler’s group to go first. Katie and Maya smooshed in with me on the rug, and I tried to feel good that they had done such a great job—drawing Mrs. Wilson.
Tyler and his group went up to the front. Logan and Chloe held up their big sheet of paper and started to read their poem out to the class:
“He’s really nice.” (And when they read that, Tyler smiled.)
“Every day.” (And his smile got bigger, like he was waiting. . . .)
“We Like him a lot.” (And Logan’s and Chloe’s eyes got big. . . .)
He Plays ball with us.” (And they started to giggle. . . .)
“HE’s our Buddy:” (“Not their Butt-y,” Tyler said—and stuck his butt out!)
“TyleR!!!”
“Tyler!” Mrs. Wilson said while the whole class laughed.
And I expected him to say, “I didn’t do anything!” but instead, he just grinned at her. And she was still trying not to crack up as she called Katie and Maya to the front of the room.
I didn’t want to go up with them. I wanted to sit in the back and watch because I knew I wouldn’t be making anybody laugh. I hadn’t done anything at all the whole time—I’d just sat there, so what did they need me for? But Maya grabbed my hand, so I was stuck.
I stood up in front with Katie and Maya, feeling dumb, which was dumb because the only person who knew I had been thinking it would be me on the poster was me. So there wasn’t any reason to be embarrassed, but, for some reason, I was anyway.
“This is Mrs. Wilson.” Katie held up the picture. “She helps us every day with our reading and math, and sometimes she lets us feed the fish.”
I tried to remind myself that of course they would have chosen Mrs. Wilson because she had been their teacher since school started. I’d only been their Study Buddy two weeks, and I didn’t get to choose who fed the fish.
I made my mouth into a big smile while Katie said, “Mrs. Wilson is really fun. And she’s really nice. And she reads us funny books.” But my smile kept wavering like it didn’t want to stay on my face anymore.
What I really wanted was to just go smoosh myself back on the rug again and let everyone step on me. But I was still a Study Buddy for two more minutes, so I tried to think about how I could help Katie and Maya. I realized that Maya hadn’t said a word—how could she when she didn’t have me in the audience to look at and not get scared while she talked?
So I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Do you want to say something nice about Mrs. Wilson?”
She nodded. She took a deep breath. I felt her squeeze onto my hand harder, so I squeezed back. Maya said in a nice loud voice, “Mrs. Wilson helps us a lot.”
Then she and Katie ran over and handed the drawing to her.
Mrs. Wilson said, “Thank you both so much!”
She pinned the poem and drawing on her special bulletin board behind her desk. And then it was time to leave.
Tyler made big burping noises the whole way back, but it didn’t even bug me because I was too busy thinking about how that was it. Study Buddies was over, and all I’d done was make Maya a little less shy and Katie a little less sticky.
I felt sort of empty inside, and at lunch I wasn’t even hungry, which was weird because you’d think if you were empty inside, you’d be starving.
When Mrs. A. dismissed the class for afternoon recess, she called me and Tyler up to her desk. “I just wanted to see how the Study Buddy program went.”
“It was good,” Tyler said.
I nodded. I wanted to say how much I’d loved helping Katie and Maya, but I couldn’t get the words out.
“Mrs. Wilson told me you did an outstanding job being leaders in her class.” Mrs. A. patted us both on the shoulder. “And I’m confident the experience
