Kindle Edition
Audiobook
No One Needed to Know
Category:
Children
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN-10: 069282913X
Type: Fiction
Pages: 138
Copyright: Dec 6, 2016
ISBN-13: 9780692829134
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Heidi's older brother is Autistic. Will she get bullied and teased, like he is, if her friends find out about him?
Heidi’s brother, Donald, is 16 and Autistic. She has always loved playing with him, but now she's 11 and her life is changing. She’s embarrassed to have her brother around and tries not to tell anyone about him. High school boys bully him. When the kids at her school find out about him, she gets bullied too. It’s not fair. No one seems to understand what she's going through.
But Heidi needs to understand too. She can't change her brother, but she can change how she feels about him, and she can get people to see why her brother is special.
Excerpt
Donald didn’t see them coming.
Even though the boys shouted horrible names at him, my brother remained completely oblivious to it all, concerned only with his combination lock.
“Lame brain!”
“Dork head!”
The noise around him made it hard for him to concentrate on the numbers. He turned the card over and over, brought his hands to his ears, pushed his glasses tightly against his nose. I knew this behavior. He was more worried about not getting the combination right than what was going on around him. He was worried to death about it.
But he couldn’t afford to be right then.
“Donald! Watch out!” I screamed.
Donald looked up, but it was too late to get away. His bike blocked any exit. All he could do was cringe.
Inches in front of my brother, the boys skidded to a stop, leaving long black marks on the sidewalk. Even though they were probably only fourteen or fifteen years old, up on their bikes the boys towered over crouching Donald. They laughed at their joke. Donald gave them that nervous smile. What could he say? What could he do? Donald didn’t know how to fight back. Even if he did, these guys would clobber him.
“Get away from him!” I shouted. I ditched my bike and ran up behind the bullies. They swung around toward me. Like my brother, I felt pretty helpless with these guys. I was only eleven, so they were older and stronger. If I had to fight, I would. I was ready. I had teeth and nails. I might not have won, but I could do some damage. “Leave him alone. He’s not doing anything to you.”
“Are you his babysitter?” the taller boy asked, his chuckles sounding like he was choking on milk.
“Are you a retard like him?” the one wearing his cap backwards snickered.
Nothing grated on my nerves more than that word. Donald was not a “retard.”
“Get away,” I seethed.
The boys snickered at me. “Ooh, tough girl.” They tugged their scratched-up bikes around so the front wheels aimed right at me. The taller boy faked as though he would run me over. I made the mistake of flinching.
“Better get yourself another bodyguard,” he shouted to Donald, never taking his mean eyes off of me.
Donald stood up behind them. “That’s my sister,” he informed them. “Not my bodyguard.”
“Your sister,” they both commented.
“Are you a retard too?” one asked. “How do you spell dumb-head?”
“Leave us alone,” I said quietly.
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll pop your tires.” I raised a hand to the stick-pin on my shirt shaped like a soccer ball. I won that pin in a tournament a month ago and always wore it. Quickly, I unfastened it and pointed the sharp end at the front tires of the bikes.
“Ooh, we’re scared,” they both teased. The taller boy reached out and grabbed the pin from my hand. It had to have stabbed his palm, but he didn’t show any sign of it hurting. He threw the pin far into the grass. With an evil grin to me, he nodded to his friend, and they rode away. Over their shoulders they called out, “Next time we won’t stop!”
I unlocked Donald’s bike lock with shaky fingers while Donald poked around the grass looking for the pin.
“Do you know them?” I asked.
“Matt Tonkovich and Daryl Peck. Daryl Peck is the bigger one. He lives on Sego Street. Near our house.”
I held the bike for Donald to get on. He ignored me and kept looking through the grass. I asked him, “Are they always so mean to you?”
“Not always.” He said that about everyone. “No,” he denied.
“When are they nice?” I pushed.
“Sometimes,” he answered, but Donald was already thinking about something else. “Do you want to go for a shake today? I’d like a chocolate shake.”
“No.” It was always no. “Not today. I just want to go home.”
I didn’t tell my brother that I didn’t want to be seen with him any longer that day. It was bad enough that Donald was picked on all the time. I didn’t like it happening to me too.
“Get on your bike already,” I ordered.
Donald stood up and walked toward the bike as if he wasn’t sure that was what he wanted to do.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Don’t you want your pin?”
I did want my pin. Earning it had taken a lot of work. Now it was doomed to be a surprise prick in the foot to some barefooted two-year-old.
“We’ll never find it,” I told him halfheartedly, and I figured that was half true. Donald certainly wouldn’t be able to find it, and I didn’t have the patience to help him look. Besides, what if Matt and Daryl came back?
I fetched my bike from where I’d left it lying in the middle of the sidewalk and led the way home. Everything Donald saw sparked an observation he had to make out loud, but I didn’t say a word in response to him. Donald never clued in that I just wanted him to shut up.
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