Pluto Read Free Page A

and Alex started having playdates with other kids. They went to a different school than I did, since they lived on the other side of the park, so we didn’t see them as much anymore. Auggie and I would bump into them in the park sometimes—Zack and Alex, hanging out with their new buddies—and we tried hanging out with them a couple of times. But their new friends didn’t seem to like us. Okay, that’s not exactly true. Their new friends didn’t like
Auggie.
I know that for a fact, because Zack told me this. I remember telling this to my mom, and she explained that some kids might feel “uncomfortable” around Auggie because of the way he looks. That’s how she put it. Uncomfortable. That’s not how Zack and Alex had put it, though. They used the word “scared.”
    But I knew that Zack and Alex weren’t uncomfortable or scared of Auggie, so I didn’t understand why
they
stopped hanging out with us. I mean, I had new friends from my school, too, but I didn’t stop hanging out with Auggie. Then again, I never hung out with Auggie and my new friends together, because, well, mixing friends can be a weird thing even under the best circumstances. I guess the truth is, I didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable or scared, either.
    Auggie had his own group of friends, too, by the way. These were kids who belonged to an organization for kids with “craniofacial differences,” which is what Auggie has. Every year, all the kids and their families hang out together at Disneyland or some other fun place like that. Auggie loved going on these trips. He’d made friends all over the country. But these friends didn’t live near us, so he hardly ever got to hang out with them.
    I did meet one of his friends once, though. A kid named Hudson. He had a different syndrome than Auggie has. His eyes were spaced very far apart, and they kind of bulged out a bit. He and his parents were staying with Auggie’s family for a couple of days while they were in the city meeting with doctors at Auggie’s hospital. Hudson was the same age as me and Auggie. He was really into Pokémon, I remember.
    Anyway, I had an okay time playing with him and Auggie that day, though Pokémon has never really been my thing. But then we all went out to dinner together—and that’s when things got bad for me. I can’t believe how much we got stared at! Like, usually when it was just me and Auggie, people would look at him and not even notice me. I was used to that. But with Hudson there, for some reason, it was just so much worse. People would look at Auggie first, and then they’d look at Hudson, and then they’d automatically look at me like they were wondering what was wrong with me, too. I saw one teenager staring at me like he was trying to figure out what was out of place on my face. It was so annoying! It made me want to scream. I couldn’t wait to go home.
    The next day, since I knew Hudson was still going to be there, I asked Lourdes if I could have a playdate over at Zack’s house after school instead of going to Auggie’s house. It’s not that I didn’t like Hudson, because I did. But I wasn’t into Pokémon, and I definitely didn’t want to get stared at again if we all went out somewhere.
    I ended up having lots of fun at Zack’s house. Alex came over, and the three of us played Four Square in front of his stoop. It really felt like old times again—except for the fact that Auggie wasn’t there with us. But it was nice. No one stared at us. No one felt uncomfortable. No one got scared. Hanging out with Zack and Alex was just easy. That’s when I realized why they didn’t hang out with us anymore. Being friends with Auggie could be hard sometimes.
    Luckily, Auggie never asked me why I didn’t come over to his house that day. I was glad about that. I didn’t know how to tell him that being friends with him could be hard for me sometimes, too.

8:26 a.m.
    I don’t know why, but it’s almost impossible for me to get to school