The teacher glanced at the boy.
She said nothing.
By the end of class, the boy had calmed down.
He reassured himself.
It was all right.
It wasn't as if he had never been through something like this before.
He just had to go through it again.
What was the harm in people saying a few things about him?
He would ignore them.
After a while, everyone would naturally forget about it.
The alarmed look faded from the boy's face.
His pale cheeks regained a healthy flush.
When he got home and saw his mother, he forgot all about what had happened at school.
He was already unhappy at school.
Why bring that unhappiness home and make himself miserable there too?
With his mother around, the boy was happy.
But things unfolded in a way the boy hadn't expected.
A new rumor began spreading around school.
There was something wrong with the boy's mind.
He talked to the air...
That was the nice version...
The meaner rumors said the boy had something wrong with his brain... that he had a mental illness... that he wasn't mentally normal...
Some students even worried that the boy might have an episode...
The teacher also heard about the rumor.
She called many of the students in to talk.
The boy went to the school counselor's office.
The boy knew there was nothing wrong with him.
But Ya Ya was real, too.
Having to lie to the teacher made him uneasy and nervous.
How could a young child hide it perfectly?
The teacher noticed his unusual unease and nervousness.
The boy stubbornly insisted that nothing was wrong with him.
Even when several witnesses said they had seen his strange behavior with their own eyes.
They had also