Auggie & Me Read Free Page B

shook our heads. He rubbed his forehead.
    â€œYou know,” he said, “one of the things you learn when you get old like me is that sometimes, a new situation will come along, and you’ll have no idea what to do. There’s no rule book that tells you how to act in every given situation in life, you know? So what I always say is that it’s always better to err on the side of kindness. That’s the secret. If you don’t know what to do, just be kind. You can’t go wrong. Which is why I asked you three to help me out here, because I’d heard from your lower-school teachers that you’re all really nice kids.”
    We didn’t know what to say to this, so we all just kind of smiled like goobers.
    â€œJust treat him like you would treat any kid you’ve just met,” he said. “That’s all I’m trying to say. Okay, guys?”
    We nodded at the same time now, too. Bobbling heads.
    â€œYou guys rock,” he said. “So, relax, wait here a bit, and Mrs. Garcia will come and get you in a few minutes.” He opened the door. “And, guys, really, thanks again for doing this. It’s good karma to do good. It’s a mitzvah, you know?”
    With that, he smiled, winked at us, and left the room.
    All three of us exhaled at the same time. We looked at each other, our eyes kind of wide.
    â€œOkay,” Jack said, “I don’t know what the heck karma is and I don’t know what the heck mitzvah is!”
    This made us all laugh a little, though it was kind of a nervous type of laugh.

First Look
    I’m not going to go into detail about the rest of what happened that day. I’m just going to point out that, for the first time in his life, Jack had not exaggerated. In fact, he had done the opposite. Is there a word that means the opposite of exaggerated? “Unexaggerated”? I don’t know. But Jack had totally not exaggerated about this kid’s face.
    The first look I got of August, well, it made me want to cover my eyes and run away screaming. Bam. I know that sounds mean, and I’m sorry about that. But it’s the truth. And anyone who says that that’s not
their
first reaction when seeing Auggie Pullman isn’t being honest. Seriously.
    I totally would have walked out the door after I saw him, but I knew I would get in trouble if I did. So I just kept looking at Mr. Tushman, and I tried to listen to what he was saying, but all I heard was yak yak yak yak yak because my ears were burning. In my head, I was like,
Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude!
    Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude!
    I think I said that word a thousand times to myself. I don’t know why.
    At some point, he introduced us to Auggie. Ahh! I think I actually shook his hand. Triple ahh! I wanted to zoom out of there so fast and wash my hand. But before I knew what was happening, we were headed out the door, down the hallway, and up the stairs.
    Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude!
    I caught Jack’s eye as we were going up the stairs to homeroom. I opened my eyes really wide at him and mouthed the words, “No way!”
    Jack mouthed back, “I told you!”

Scared
    When I was about five, I remember watching an episode of
SpongeBob
one night, and a commercial came on TV that totally freaked me out. It was a few days before Halloween. A lot of commercials came on during that time of year that were kind of scary, but this one was for a new teen thriller I’d never heard about before. Suddenly, while I was watching the commercial, a closeup of a zombie’s face popped up on the screen. Well, it totally and completely terrified me. I mean, terrified me like the kind of terrified where you actually run out of the room screaming with your arms in the air. TERRRRR-IFFF-FIED!
    After that, I was so scared of seeing that zombie face again, I stopped watching any TV until Halloween was over and the movie was no longer