Creative Writing Wonder  Project

Based off of R. J. Palacio’s novel Wonder

 

Perspective: Jack 

Scene: When Jack says mean things about Auggie behind his back

 

        Sunshine peeked through my curtains and I sat up quickly. Today was Halloween! Personally, I think Christmas is better, but Halloween is a close second. I knew Auggie’s favorite holiday was Halloween, so he must be really excited. I hopped out of bed and started pulling on my mummy costume. I ate a quick breakfast and got on the bus. When we arrived at school, I put all my stuff in my locker and entered the classroom for homeroom. Julian, Henry, and Miles called me over and Julian showed me his mask. 

        “Wow,” said Miles. “I feel like whoever made that mask was using his face as a model.” I was confused for a second but then realized he was talking about Auggie. 

        “Like this part especially…” answered Julian, putting his fingers on the cheeks and eyes of his Darth Sidious mask. I didn’t want to say anything mean about Auggie, but I didn’t really want to disagree with Julian because then I would be an enemy of his “group.” 

        “Actually,” Miles said, “He looks like a shrunken head. Have you ever seen those? He looks exactly like that.” 

        I heard someone say something about an orc, a monster, the Plague…

        It all got drowned out in my brain. I could almost hear the gears spinning in my brain. If I said something bad about Auggie, I would end up regretting it later and feeling guilty about it. But, if I chose to defend Auggie, Julian and his group wouldn’t like me anymore and pretty much everyone would turn against me. I thought back to when Summer read the precept out loud, When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind. For some reason, the bad part of my brain won the internal argument going on inside of me and I decided that I had to say something. “I’ve thought about this a lot,” I said. “And I think… If I looked like him, I’d kill myself.”

        “You wouldn’t,” Julian said from inside his Darth Sidious mask. 

        “Yeah, I would,” I insisted. “I can’t imagine looking in the mirror every day and seeing myself like that. It would be too awful. And getting stared at all the time.”

        “Then why do you hang out with him so much?” Julian questioned. I tensed. Finally I decided to lie to him. I looked around before answering, and seeing that Boba Fett wasn’t there, I answered. There was a bleeding scream standing behind me, and he was kind of short, like Auggie’s height, but I let that go because Auggie said he would dress up as Boba Fett. 

        “Well, I dunno, Tushman asked me to be a welcome buddy for him, and ever since, he’s just been following me around.” I turned around again and saw the bleeding scream staring at me. Even though he had a mask on, I felt like he was upset. I still didn’t know who he was though, so I let it slide. 

        “Just ditch him,” Julian told me. I saw movement behind me. It was the bleeding scream walking out of the classroom. Again, I couldn’t see his face, but he must have been upset, since when he walked out, his legs were kind of stiff. He was looking down, and, when I left the group to look out the doorway, the bleeding scream had disappeared into the bathroom. 

        For the next two days, Auggie wasn’t at school, so I assumed he was sick. Then, he came back, and I was really excited to hang out with him again. But whenever I looked at him, he would look away and turn his back on me. Finally, Summer gave me a hint, “Bleeding scream.” So maybe that bleeding scream was him…