The Magic at the End of the World (Do You Remember, Book 5)

Friday, February 9, 2001

Well, two days after "the birthday from hell", I'm now starting the tenth grade at Lochland High School.

To be honest, though, I'm not sure if I'm ready to begin my sophomore year, not when Clay is still a freshman and most of my other classmates will never catch up to my level. Also, I knew that there was no way that I would be like the other students now.

Not as far as the Magical Secret Society is concerned.

Anyway, I go to orientation, where I saw Jamarico Garrett sitting in the front row. To be honest, though, I had no idea that he was even going to Lochland High until recently. (This is why I don't like going to high school; it's too big and nobody there really knows each other. Plus, the kids who went to the same middle school were sticking with their own friend groups and refusing to interact with the rest of the school.)

Well, Jamarico says to me, "I've heard a lot about you, Jed Hamilton. You seem to be that one guy who just doesn't want to be a boy, don't you?"

"Well, I'm not gay and I'm not secretly a girl, if that's what you're asking," I said. "Why are you here?"

"Just checking," said Jamarico. "It's already bad enough that we of the African-American race have no idea that autism is real, with our televisions and movies teaching African-Americans that autism is a rich White man's disease and any Black child who might have autism doesn't have autism and just really needs a good butt whooping, but I wonder why no one bothers to talk about the dark side of autism at all."

"Is it because Lucas Harrison killed your father?" said Chelsea.

"Well, it's not just that," said Jamarico. "It's just that nobody wants to talk about how bad having a disability is. We may applaud people like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder for "overcoming" their tragic circumstances and rising to greatness, but the sad truth is, though, most people will never be able to escape from their disabilities, not just because society is keeping them down, but because they lack the knowledge and motivation needed in order to break free from that."

"And what about Black people and autism?" I said. "Nobody really knows about that, or do they?"

"Well, in 1945, an African-American couple living in Oregon was arrested for refusing to send their 6-year-old child to a hospital because of his disability," said Jamarico. "During that time, most White families were obligated to send their disabled children away; it was largely unheard of for African-American families to send their disabled children away. But after that incident was reported in the newspapers, most African-American families were told by their community leaders to implement some "tough love" on their disabled children, which consisted of those families forcing their disabled children to hide their disabilities under forced masking and manipulations, including disciplining. So many of these disabled children were forced to grow up as confused adults, unable to deal with their disabilities because their families had convinced them that being disabled is mainly a White people's problem."

"Which is why we have that problem with Lucas Harrison and why your father is dead," said Claire.

"Exactly," said Jamarico. "But I'm also worried about how Jeimy Griffin will react when she discovers the true reason why her family's dead and she's an orphan. She doesn't know what autism is, and most Black communities (which had used discipline and brainwashing to force their disabled children to hide their disabilities) are about to see their hard work of keeping autism out of their communities go up in smoke. There's nothing else they can do to stop this from happening, and before you know it, the problems that society is already facing will be ten times worse than what they are now."

"Does this mean that the tragedies that we've seen this year will be the new normal?" Kaprice said as he turned to face us.

"At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if the news tomorrow makes another report about a disabled person who snapped and killed another person," said Jamarico. "That's what happened this year. As a community, we really need to step it up and reach out to those families with autistic kids. If we don't, then another tragedy will undoubtedly happen."

I frowned, knowing that Jamarico was right when he said that Black people needed to learn about what autism was and what it was doing to their families. Autism doesn't discriminate between racial ethnicities or genders. It doesn't care about how old you are or if your family is rich or poor. All it does is take and take and take. It has already taken away the minds of so many people, and I fear that more people will have their lives destroyed by autism before a possible cure can be found.

Claire then said to me, "Like it or not, this is the real reason why we created this society."

"And that's to help people like Lucas Harrison and JoLee Griffin before the cruel and heartless people living in society decide that they don't deserve to exist and seek to kill them," said Kaprice. "It happened to my next-door neighbor's son, and it could happen again to someone that we know. Who knows if autism is even in our families?"

Well, to take some attention away from this part of the story, I must say that the tenth grade is going to be harder than the ninth grade. As in, not only will I have to deal with more homework and more classes, but I would have to run my fake tabletop RPG club while keeping the Magical Secret Society a secret from the rest of the school. At the same time, the Society needed to reach out to lonely and isolated people before the evils of the underground reached out and grabbed them.

Speaking of which, I did not see Milton at the school at all today. I'm sure that maybe the Palmer family decided to keep him at home due to the problems that the city is currently having, but then I remembered that Milton might not return to Lochland High School so soon after his surgery. At the same time, though, his parents are fighting Mr. and Mrs. Palmer for visitation rights, something that mom wants the judge to deny, mainly because of the abuse that Milton suffered while he was still living with his parents. I frowned, thinking that I probably should pay Milton a visit after school.

But before I could do that, I realized that I needed to deal with my own family issues. Mom and dad would have to fight the Williams family for me, and I'm sure that Mary will have to deal with the Holloway family and with that Pamela Craig. There's nothing else for it.

Anyway, all I have left to say is that my tenth grade year will be quite interesting...