Chapter 1

The summer before my senior year of high school was the beginning of a new life. Or at least I was determined to make it so. I was 16 years old, the youngest person in my class. I had been skipped from kindergarden to second grade, and from second to fourth. The beginning of my fourth grade year, we moved from South Dallas to Cedar Hill, a suburb on the southwest outskirts of Dallas. My father had gotten a promotion with the company he was working for, and as they said on the Jeffersons, we were movin' on up.

When we moved and my parents enrolled me into the local elementary school, the principal said that the district did not skip students and tried to re-enroll me in second grade. My parents objected, and after lawsuits and NAACP protests were threatened, the superintendant stepped in and reluctantly agreed to put me in third grade, in the Gifted and Talented program, contingent upon me passing the entrance tests.

Needless to say, I broke the curve, the school admitted me as a new student in the third grade, and I embarked upon my new scholastic career, such as it were.

Of course, since I was supposed to be in the fourth grade, I was already familiar with everything my class was studying, which had the effect of boring me out of my mind. So I tended to sit in the back of the classroom, off in my own little world as the teacher was discussing things such as fractions and handwriting. This, coupled with the fact that I tended to get nothing but 100's on tests and homework, meant that I was ostracized from the rest of the class from day one.

And did I mention that I was a, shall we say, husky kid? At least, that's what they used to call us back then. Today, you would have said I was fat. There wasn't a candy bar or bag of chips that I didn't like.

Let me give you a simple equation. Fat + smart =?

Answer: a daily ass-kicking every day, after school once we got off the bus. David Robbins and his band of merry men would chase me home from the bus stop, throwing rocks and dirt clods at my fleeing figure. You'd think with all the running I did, I would have dropped some weight. Of course, to calm my nerves once I got home, I'd stick a Fudgesicle in my mouth. Sometimes two.

Such was the normal course of my day. Wake up, eat a bowl of Frosted Flakes, get dropped off at school by my mom, sleepwalk through class, hide in the library during recess, sit by myself during lunch, go home, get chased by bullies, and suck on frozen snacks. Repeat daily.

Until my neighbors moved in.