9781422288139

13

Getting to Know Connor

But sometimes—I have to admit—Connor could be very sweet. Just when you thought you couldn’t stand one more minute of hav- ing him around, he’d snuggle up to you with that freckly face and those round blue eyes and say something like, “I lub you, Shauna.” So, you can see there wasn’t too much trouble with Connor be- fore he started to school, if you don’t count the little things, like the time he tried to mow the lawn with my dad’s new riding mower (he ruined the engine when he poured oil in the gas tank); or the time he dressed up like Santa Claus and tried to go down the chimney of our backyard brick barbeque (he got stuck and the fire department had to come and pull him out); or the experiment he conducted on our beagle Cuddles to see if he liked Tabasco sauce on his dog food. The real trouble didn’t start until Connor was five and my par- ents had to let him out of the house on a regular basis. I was twelve and working hard on being a normal member of the sixth grade. The way to do this, as everybody knows, is to NOT STAND OUT in any way. Like, you don’t want to look different, or talk different, or wear weird clothes, or get really, really good grades or really, really bad grades—stuff like that. Most of all, you don’t want to have family members who are dif- ferent. (Or if you do, you never let the other sixth-graders find out about it.) So when Connor began kindergarten and his reputation started getting around at Conwell Consolidated School, where all four of us O’Leary kids were students at the same time, I knew my standing as a normal sixth-grader was in trouble—big, big trouble, because Connor was a member of my family. And if he was any- thing, he was definitely different . The notes started coming home with Connor from his very first day of kindergarten. The bright orange notes from Conwell Consol- idated have all these pre-printed descriptions of bad stuff students can do. That way, parents can see at a glance what their kids did wrong that day. Beside each printed description is an empty box, so teachers don’t have to waste any effort and actually write words. All they have to do is check the box beside the right description: “Does