That Weird Kid, A Short Story

By Quan Williams

Everybody called Antwan Russell “that weird kid” around school. Not to his face, of course. But if you asked any of the kids around my 4th grade class about Antwan, you would mostly hear about how “that weird kid” wandered around the playground at recess, waving his arms or some stick in the air and talking to himself. It was strange, to say the least.

And he wasn’t like that all of the time, only at recess. For the rest of the day he’d sit quietly in class and do his work. Sometimes he would answer a question or contribute to a discussion, but it seemed he’d spend most of the day trying not to draw attention to himself. The only time we’d really hear him say anything was during creative writing, where he was usually the first person to offer to read his stories to the class. They were usually pretty good stories, too. But during recess, my friends and I would always see him meandering around the playground. It would be like he was in a totally different world.

I asked the teacher about it one day. She was a nice teacher, and I enjoyed her class. She was thin, with long, black hair and these owl-like black eyes. Whenever a kid was being disruptive in class she would just stare at him or her with those eyes, and they would be so creeped out that they’d straighten up without her having to say a word. But when she wasn’t staring at you like that, her eyes were nice to look at. She had thin lips, too.

“Well, you know that this is Antwan’s first year here at this school,” she said, “maybe he’s just too shy to make friends with any of you, so he plays by himself.” She then went on to tell me how he wound up at this school. His dad got promoted to a higher paying job, and he didn’t want his son to get a second-rate education at a public school, so he paid the extra money and sent his son to my school. I thought that kind of made sense, but even some of the shy kids I’ve seen didn’t act as far out as that weird kid did.

My big brother had a different idea. I told him about that weird kid when I got home from school. He was in high school, so he got home from school earlier than me.

“Maybe he has an imaginary friend,” he said while playing his video game, “I used to have one when I was little. Other kids ignored me a lot back then, so I made up an imaginary friend called Bob the Weasel to talk to. It was a really silly thing to do, but it kept me from getting bored.”

That seemed to make a little sense. I could imagine that weird kid having an imaginary friend. But if he had one, sometimes I’d see him at recess and he wouldn’t be talking to his imaginary friend. He’d be staring at something in the distance, and his face would be scrunched up, like he’s really thinking hard about something.

My brother paused his game and gave me a thoughtful look. “Hey” he said, “If this is really bothering you, why don’t you just ask him about it? I’m sure he has a perfectly logical explanation for why he does why he does. I know you, sis. If you don’t do something, this is going to bother you until you do. Just talk to him and get it over with.”

Then he mussed up my hair. I hate it when he does that.

I didn’t want to mess up whatever that weird kid had going by bugging him. Maybe all of that wandering and talking to himself made him happy. Who was I to interrupt that? But then again, maybe he really was only doing that because he didn’t have any friends. Every time I thought of that, I felt bad. I didn’t really know what to do, so I asked some of my friends the next day at lunch.

“Maybe he’s retarded,” Jesse said between slurps of her chocolate milk, “I once saw this homeless guy who was standing at a gas station my dad was filling up at. He was just standing there, staring up into the air, talking to himself like nobody else was there. It was really creepy.”

I didn’t agree with that. That weird kid didn’t seem retarded at all. Sure, he kept to himself and never told anyone his grades, but if he was doing bad in school or needed special classes, they wouldn’t have put him in with us normal kids, right? Besides, whenever he read what he wrote during creative writing time, his stories were really good. A retarded person can’t come up with stories like that. Can they?

“Hey,” Rachel said, “I saw this movie called ‘A Beautiful Mind’ with my mom a while back. It was about this math genius who had sicko-fernia. He was acting crazy in the movie, but he was, like, the smartest guy at the school. Maybe that weird kid is some kind of crazy genius, like the guy in the movie.”

I didn’t agree with that, either. It seemed Rachel was giving the boy too much credit. I wasn’t surprised, though. All of us knew that Rachel thought that weird kid was cute. She even asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance once, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

All I knew is that weird kid was acting totally bizarre at recesses. I heard the other kids making fun of him behind his back and saying things about him when he wasn’t around. I was tempted to join in, but my Mom always told me not to get involved when the crowd is talking bad about somebody. When you do that, then there’s a chance that whoever you’re talking about might find out, and you could get singled out for feeding in to what a bunch of other people were saying. I thought it would be the best idea to not make a big deal of it, ignore that weird kid and his wandering, and go about my business.

But as much as I tried to ignore him, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him at recess. What was his secret? Why was he acting so strangely? What was wrong with him?

“You know,” I told my friends about a week later, “Somebody really needs to go over there and find out what’s up with him.” I looked over at the boy while he was sitting by himself at the corner of one of the lunch tables, eating a hot lunch. “I don’t think it’s healthy for somebody to be wandering around acting crazy like that.”

“Well,” Jesse said while twirling some of her blonde hair with a finger, “Why don’t you do it? Since you’re so concerned about it and all.”

“Me?” I said with shock, “I didn’t mean me. It’s not my problem and it’s none of my business. I couldn’t care less. I’m just saying, that’s all.”

“Oh really?” Sally rebuffed, “If you were really that unconcerned about that weird kid, you wouldn’t be making an issue of what he does right now.” She leaned in and gave me a sly look.

Then she threw down the challenge.

“I dare you,” she said, “I dare you to go to that weird kid during recess and ask him what he’s doing and why.”
Wow. A dare. I didn’t think it would come to that.

“Yeah,” Jesse chimed in, “Every time anyone starts talking about that weird kid, you get all worked up about it. It’s like your personal crusade, or something. Maybe if you found out what the scoop is, you wouldn’t be so obsessed over it. I double-dare you to go ask him.”

Wow. A double-dare. This was getting serious.

Rachel then added her two cents. “You know,” she said, “I think we all want to know what the real scoop is. And I think it will be good if we found out, then we wouldn’t have to guess all the time, like we’re doing now. And since you brought it up, I think you should do it. I triple-dog dare you to go ask him.”

Now mind you, I’m not a tomboy by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t like to get hurt like most boys seem to do, and I don’t like to get dirty, which all boys love to do. I do consider myself active for a girl, though. I like to run and jump and skip and play around like that. Sometimes I even like to play sports. But I’m not a tomboy.

Tomboy or not, a triple-dog dare is a triple-dog dare. And the only way you get to back out of a triple-dog dare is if the dare will get somebody hurt, killed or put in jail. And since this dare didn’t do any of those things, I had no choice. I had to accept the dare.

I don’t think I ever remember lunch going by so fast.

Before I knew it we were outside, and all the other kids were running off to play on the jungle gym, or to play soccer or kickball or handball. Well, most of the other kids were. Over in a lonely corner of the playground, where there was a bench and some trees overlooking the freeway, sat that weird kid. He was prancing around the bench waving a stick like it was a fencing sword. Then he suddenly dropped the stick, as if some invisible enemy had knocked it out of his hand. It looked really strange, and I had started having second thoughts about this. I mean, what would be the harm if I didn’t go? There’s no real penalty for backing out of a triple-dog dare, right? No harm, no foul, right?

“Well?” Sally said as she, Jesse and Rachel stood behind me, “What are you waiting for? Get to it!” With those words, I felt six hands touch my back and shove me forward. I tumbled forward a few steps, but by the time I regained my balance, it seemed like I was already halfway to where that weird kid was. I turned and looked back at my friends, mad that they rushed me off like that. I saw them shooing me towards that weird kid, and then I figured there was no turning back. I turned back towards that lonely corner, mustered up as much courage as I could find, and marched up to meet that weird kid.

“Hi, Antwan,” I said as I approached him. He looked at me with surprise, as if he didn’t expect anybody to talk to him. Poor thing…he probably didn’t.

“Uh,” he said warily, “Hi.”

I wanted to just flat out ask why he was walking around talking to himself, but my Mom always taught me to try not to be rude when I ask people questions. “Whatcha doing?” I asked instead.

As soon as I asked that, Antwan’s face brightened, and his eyes got a lot bigger. I swore I could actually see the sun reflecting off of his big, brown eyes. I never noticed how pretty his eyes were until I saw them up close like that.

“Nobody’s every bothered to ask me that before,” he said, “I didn’t think anybody really cared what I did around here.”

That made me feel really bad for not talking to him earlier. “I care,” was all I could say.

“Well,” he said while picking up a nearby stick, “Remember a few months ago at career day, when I said I wanted to write T.V. shows like my uncle?”

I didn’t really remember, but I went along with him anyway. “Yeah,” I said.

“Well,” he continued, “My uncle told me that it’s never too early to start writing, so I’ve been writing my own T.V. show. I call it “The Loner,” and it’s about this guy who wanders around the country looking for people to help. I write the stories during creative writing, then I try to act them out during recess to make sure the stories make sense. If I don’t like something, I make changes when I get home.”

I was impressed. That was actually pretty cool. And all this time I thought he was just acting crazy.
“And you just do this by yourself?” I asked.

He nodded. “I would ask the other kids if they wanted to help me,” he said timidly, “But I’m afraid they’ll say no. I don’t want them to think I’m weird, or anything like that.”

Too late for that, I thought. But then it struck me. The only reason we thought Antwan was weird was because we didn’t understand what he was trying to do. And the stories he had been trying to act out were pretty good.

“Hey,” I found myself saying, “Can I be part of your T.V. show?”

I didn’t think his eyes could get any bigger than when I saw them earlier. I was wrong. Not only did they get twice as big, but he made the biggest, toothiest smile I have ever seen. His smile was almost as pretty as his eyes, because he had bright white teeth, and a dimple on his left cheek I had never seen before.

“You really want to help me with my show?” he asked. I grinned and nodded.

Antwan clenched his fists and literally jumped for joy. I had never seen him that happy before.

“That is AWESOME!” he yelped, “You can be the leading lady!”

For a split second I wondered what the other kids would think of me if they saw me playing with that weird kid. But only for a second.

“So, what’s happening in this particular episode of your show?” I asked. He happily gave me a rundown of his ideas, and we spent the rest of recess playacting all of his scenes out. I even gave him some ideas on what he could do to make some of them better, and helped him write everything down after school, while we were riding home on the bus. I was surprised by how much fun I had, and Antwan was really happy to have me helping him.

“So, what did you find out?” My friends asked me the next morning.

“He wants to make his own T.V. show,” I told them matter-of-factly, “He writes his episodes in creative writing, then during recess he comes out here and acts them out.”

“That’s kind of weird,” Sally said while making an unsure face. Looking at Jesse and Rachel, I could tell they were thinking the exact same thing.

“I thought so, too,” I said, “but then I helped him act out an episode from his show, and it was really fun! He even changed his script around and made me the star of his show.”

That seemed to get them interested. “Really?” they all asked.

“Mmm-Hmm,” I replied with a nod, “And I think he’ll do that for anyone who wants to help him, but I think he’s too shy to ask anybody to.”

I told them I was going to play with him again at recess. In class, he asked the teacher if he could read his latest story out loud. She allowed him to, and I was shocked to hear him read the story we were playing out the day before! And on top of that, he added all of the changes I suggested to him. He looked at me a lot while he was reading, as if he wanted my approval. I didn’t know whether to feel proud or embarrassed, and I think I felt a little of both. But when he was done, everybody clapped for him, and teacher told him that she really liked his story! At that point I was definitely feeling more proud than embarrassed.

At lunchtime I sought Antwan out. I found him sitting at the edge of the playground, looking at a nearby stone garden and seemly deep in thought.

“Antwan?” I asked, “I don’t mean to interrupt your thinking…”

Antwan looked up at me, and he seemed happy to see me again. “You’re not interrupting anything,” he said, “I was just looking at these big rocks and thinking. If I were writing a different TV show, this would be a cool setting for an alien planet.”

I decided to play along. “Well,” I said, “why can’t your show be on an alien planet?”

Antwan looked back at the rocks and smiled, “Yeah,” he agreed, “why not?”

I needed to tell him what was on my mind before he got too caught up in his new idea. “I really liked the story you read in class today,” I said, “It’s a lot better than the way you had it yesterday.”

He gave me a thoughtful look, almost mesmerizing me with his pretty brown eyes. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said, “I had a lot of fun with you yesterday, and your ideas really helped me. You were awesome!” I’m sure that I was blushing when he said that.

Before I could reply, though, his shoulders slumped downward, and his face went from really happy to really sad, as if some grim realization came over him. “You came to tell me you don’t want to play with me anymore, didn’t you?” he said dejectedly. I heard a lot of hurt in his voice.

“No,” I said, “what made you think that?”

He pointed to at me and said, “Because your friends are standing right behind you, and they’ve got weird looks on their faces.”

Totally surprised, I spun around and looked behind me. Sure enough, Sally, Jesse and Rachel were standing there staring at us. Rachel was waving at me pitifully, and she seemed ashamed that they had been caught spying on us.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked in a huff.

“Well,” Sally said timidly, “We were thinking about everything you said about Antwan’s T.V. show, and we were kind of wondering if, well, if he could make parts in his show for us…”

I don’t think I had ever seen anyone’s expression go from sad to glad as quickly as I had seen Antwan’s. “Of course I can,” he laughed, “in fact, I just got an idea for something new. Let’s call it ‘The Space Girls,’ and let’s make it like Star Trek, except with all girls. You all can be the space crew, and I can be the alien.”

That was actually a cool idea. “Ooh!” I found myself yelping, “Can I be an alien, too?”

Antwan nodded enthusiastically. “I’d love that,” he replied, “We can all act a story out, and I’ll write it down after school and make a brand new T.V. show out of it.” Honestly, the only time I had more fun being a monster than that day was when I went dressed as one for Halloween.

The other girls had fun, too. In fact, we had so much fun that we started regularly playing make-believe with Antwan, running along with whatever wild T.V. show idea he would come up with that day, and delighting to hear him read the story he wrote about it the next day in class. A few other kids started playing with us, and eventually our teacher helped us start an afterschool drama club, where she helped us put together our first ever school play…which Antwan wrote, of course.

By the end of sixth grade, Antwan had gone from “that weird kid” to one of the kids that everybody liked. And even though we’re a little older now, and we go to different schools, I’m happy to still call him my friend.

Find out more About Quan Williams at www.quanwilliams.com