Just so you know, there will be tons of chapters to this story, but in order to get out so many they will all be fairly short like the first one. I just wanted to tell you that for those who might assume that my chapters will increase in size as they did with my other stories. Anyway, that's pretty much it. Enjoy!

PART TWO: TINA

I re-checked my report nervously with a careful eye to find mistakes. You only go through fourth grade once. I might as well get the best grades that I could. It's not like I was going to really make any friends. The only way I was going to have a life when I leave this place was if I pay attention in school. I just hate it when my teacher makes us read our essays in front of the whole class. We have to deal with stage fright AND all the mistakes we made in our paper.

I had to come up with some kind of excuse. I was next up to read my report, and I really didn't feel like being the laughing stalk of the day. What was I going to do? I had no way of stopping the teacher. I finally realized that the talking had stopped, and my teacher was staring at me intensely like mad scientists do in movies.

"You're up." I could swear that sometimes he reminded me of the principal in Matilda.

"I… I c-can't." the sound was so feeble that I could hardly believe that it was coming out of my mouth. Then I realized that the can't made it sound like I had a…. "I have a s-stutter" it wasn't perfect, but it was believable. I suppose I had time to work on it.

"Well then, I guess that Jenny's up next to read." He turned and hunted his new prey.

I let out a sigh of relief, but was careful not to make it too loud because the teacher would hear, and then he just might make me read anyway. It was kind of like a police interrogation; anything you say can and will be used against you. I resisted the urge to lay my head on my desk and fall asleep. I was at enough of a risk already. I did not need to add on to that.

At least it was the last class of the day. It should help me to be able to leave. I just can't seem to find a way out of the fact that now everyone thinks I have a stutter. There was no back door. My palms started sweating, and my heel started tapping on the floor the way it does when I'm nervous. Seconds were now hours and minutes were days. I wouldn't hold up for much longer.

Just when it seemed like I was about to explode, class was interrupted by a knock at the door. The explosion fizzled out but did not go away entirely. My teacher opened the door, and sitting there was a boy in a wheelchair. He had brown hair and Brown eyes, and looked so embarrassed that he might want to be here even less than I do. It made me wonder why he was even embarrassed at all. He didn't do anything strange or weird at all; he had a completely clean slate. I envied him.

"This is our new student Artie. He's from Columbus. Be nice." The kid looked nice enough, and nobody even seemed to care that he was in a wheelchair, especially not me. "Tina, you show him around tomorrow and be his tour guide." All I did was nod. I was too worried that I might accidentally confess to something if I opened my mouth. I was glad to have somebody who would willingly be seen with me around school.

The bell rang and we were dismissed from class. Sweet freedom. I thought about Artie on the way home, and realized that for the first time in a while I had something to look forward to that didn't involve stealing cookies for breakfast.

That night I followed my normal routine. I stayed in my room for a while until it was time for dinner, and went back to my room afterwards, but that night when I was trying to sleep, I kept thinking about the kid in the wheelchair, and I wondered how he must feel being the new kid that I never would be. I sighed, and shut my eyes tighter.

I woke up in the morning so tired that I was surprised I didn't have black circles around my eyes. I guessed that I fell asleep at around 3 AM last night. I was going to take the new kid around for a tour during class, so maybe he'll be nice enough to let me stop at the water fountains (especially the cold one by the gym) and wake myself up. I hoped he would be. He didn't look like much of a jerk.

The school tour wasn't as short as I thought it might be. Artie and I kept going places in all the wrong order so that we'd get to miss as much class as possible. I remember rolling him down the hall in his wheel chair, as we both discovered that we liked practically all of the same things.

We both loved to steal cookies, learn cool tricks on things with wheels, and we both hadn't really found our own style yet. It was nice to have a friend.

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