Read Do You Think This Is Strange? for Free Online Page B

Mr. Wyland? And then he expelled me.
    I think Chad Kennedy said it. Outside my locker at Templeton College, he pushed me, I pushed him, and it was all because he said, What are you looking at, sport?
    But that’s not right. He said, What are you looking at, you dick? and I didn’t know how to reply. It’s always safest to repeat the same sentence back if you don’t know how to reply.
    What are you looking at? I said, and he pushed me.
    I couldn’t remember who called me “sport.” Now a thread fixed firmly in my mind, an unanswered question to which I would have to return until it was resolved.
    For now, I niced the thought, sent it to the bottom of the stack. The threads didn’t complain.
    What is Saskia Stiles doing here? they asked me.

AND NOW SASKIA BEFORE ME
    Saskia remained at my table, no change in posture or expression, as if the three boys had never been crowding her. She continued to write in her journal. I hoped it was a poem.
    Ten years ago, the last time I said goodbye to Saskia Stiles, she was writing a poem. The last words I said to her were “Goodbye, Saskia,” and I waved. “I’ll see you later.”
    She put down her pencil. “GoodBYE, Freddy!” she shouted, infused with an excitement reserved for the vessels of seven-year-olds. She shouted, “I forgive you!” Then she went back to her poem. “ONCE upon a very merry time,” she said loudly as she wrote the words. “Once. Once upon a VERY! MERRY! TIME!” and she wrote some more.
    A poem now, a poem then. Poetry bookended her absence from my life.
    I put my tray down on the table. She didn’t notice, or at least didn’t acknowledge me. She scribbled furiously. The words came in short sprints, bursting from her, pulsing out like blood from a ruptured artery. Once it was complete, she tore whatever she wrote from her notebook, crumpled it, and tossed it aside.
    In between poems, she ate carrot sticks and stared at the table, ignoring the random hubble and bubble of everyone else in the cafeteria. Blond hair hung around her face. She rocked back and forth in time to her music.
    She didn’t look up at me, and gave no indication she knew who I was. So I ate my lunch. In the lunchroom to my right, the janitors ate sandwiches and disagreed with each other’s insights. I tried not to think about their hands. I had no success.
    Saskia wrote aggressively, as if she were late for a bus. She didn’t look at me, and she neither nodded nor said hi, hello, or how are you. But she was excited about something. After a minute, she put down her pencil and lifted her hands in the air, like she was being robbed. She rapidly opened and closed—open and clenched —her hands. She picked up her poem, looked at it, put it down, and froze, staring at it for a moment. Then she began writing again. A minute later, she ripped the paper from her pad, crushed it into a ball, and let it fall to the table.
    Then she squeaked.
    I’d never heard anyone squeak before. I had heard people make sounds that were intended to mimic a squeak, but those were not squeaks. Squeaks are shrill piercing sounds emitted by small animals with tiny voice boxes. Humans can’t squeak.
    Nevertheless, Saskia Stiles squeaked .
    After a few minutes, in which I ignored Saskia and she ignored me, she stopped writing altogether, and her hands dropped, relaxed. She opened her backpack and pulled out an iPhone. After turning it over in her hands a few times, she began typing in bursts, replacing pen with keyboard.
    Perhaps she was nervous or intimidated. I understand that ignoring one another is a standard ritual between teenage boys and girls. I’m not sure of its purpose, but I’m good at it. I’ve never had a girlfriend, yet I’ve still mastered the art of ignoring other people. It’s been hard work.
    As I ate, I stared at the wall in front of me. It was blank, except for a poster in