?“Did you know that the word bulb comes from the Ancient Greek word, bolba for onions?”
?“It wasn’t until the 1980’s that it was used to describe instruments of a similar shape like light bulbs of course.”
?“Today bulb is one of the words in the English language with no words to rhyme with it.”
?“Bulb. No words to rhyme with it.”
?“Funny because there’s so many words- funny isn’t it?”
?Haley looks up at me with raised eyebrows from her spot on the floor in the hallway. That’s the first time she looks at me. Mrs. Bender always tells me to check for eyes. Eyes. I forgot.
“Hi Brandon,” Haley replies and smiles a little. I look away, turn around and start walking down the hallway. I count the tiles- ten, eleven, twelve.
?I lace my fingers together and crack them. Maybe Lily is around here. I like Lily because she always knows how to figure out all those clues.
?I look down and see that my watch says 8:15. That means there’s five minutes until class starts and that means I should go now. I walk towards my English classroom and keep counting the tile floors. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…
“Whoa!” I hear when my shoulder hits a girl, and I look up to see her face. She doesn’t say anything else, and I can’t tell what her face means. I look back down and keep counting- sixteen, seventeen…
?There’s two of my friends standing in front of the door. “Time to go! 8:15, time to go!” I wave to them. They see me. I’m watching their eyes this time, but they don’t respond. They just move out of the way.
?I turn into class and sit down in my chair. The boy next to me taps me and asks, “hey did you finish this..”
?I remember that word from class yesterday, it was lollapalooza. That’s the first time I heard someone say it, so I wrote it down and looked it up. “An extraordinary thing, person, or event.” Extraordinary. An extraordinary word. It actually originated in America. How rare! I start to smile. I notice the boy is still saying something to me.
?“I guess you didn’t do the homework?” He’s speaking more quietly now and I’m not sure if he’s talking to me anymore. Mrs. Bender always tells me to be a good listener, but it’s hard to know when to listen.
?I glance around the room and watch the rest of the class sit down. I crack my fingers and wait for school to start. Lily walks in the door and I smile. Lily likes words just like me. She told me that. She sees me too and waves.
?“Hi Brandon,” Lily says to me as she sits down in her desk next to mine. I look back at her.
?“Hi Lily!” I smile and she smiles back at me. I turn my head my paper.
?“Good morning!” chirps a voice from the front of class. This means it’s time to look forward and listen. I read the board to see what we are doing today. It says class discussion of chapter 12 of Great Expectations. This is my favorite class.
?“So we all did our reading last night right? You should have read about what Pip learns Miss Havisham’s true intentions are,” Mrs. Green addresses us.
?“She wants to make him an apprentice!” I am happy to share. I add quickly, “He was hoping she would make him a gentleman of course, and he was getting quite hopeful about Estella but Mrs. Havisham only ever wanted to break his heart,” I look up from my focus on Mrs. Green’s pointy black shoes to her face, but she’s not smiling.
?“Wait a minute Brandon, and raise your hand,” Lily leans over to say to me. I glance back down at the paper. I crack my fingers. I wish I could tell the clues like Lily does.