The Peculiar Tale of Indigo Wallace

Chapter 2

from the perspective of Heather Ann Drewon

"Ugh. Here comes crazy," Ben whispered to me. I turned around. Indigo was here, wearing her plain black backpack as usual. That was the thing about her. 'As usual' was always true, because Indigo, even though she was  different, had her own routine. Every morning, Mrs. Gallagher walks her in. She sits down at her table, with Mack and Kayla. They both stop talking. She talks to people who aren't there. She looks at things that aren't there.

Ben and Judy think she's stupid. They say she doesn't talk to anyone but Mrs. Gallagher, Ms. Benton, her dad, and the imaginary people. They say she's stupid. I think she's just shy. I've tried to talk to her. She just stares. Sometimes she says nonsense. Timmy said she told someone to kill him, but Timmy was just trying to get her in trouble. The most I had ever understood from her was "Becky, it's okay. She won't hurt me". That was what she said to someone invisible when I tried to to talk to her the first time. The weird thing was, she just stared at the ground. She wasn't talking to me. I got scared, and I went to Ms. Benton. Ms. Benton told me it was okay, and Indigo just saw the world differently than most of us. I think that's true.

Today, at lunch, Ben and Judy and Timmy talked about Indigo. They said she was a freak. I told them she wasn't, and they said I was a freak too.

I told Ms. Benton what they said. She told me that it was good that I stood up for Indigo. She said that maybe, it's a good thing to be what they call freaks, if those are the people that stand up for one another. It means you're not one of the people doing the teasing. I think that's true too.

I went up to Indigo after school. She didn't seem to see me at first. "Indigo?" I asked her. "I just wanted to say that even though you don't seem like you like to talk to people, I would love to talk to you."

For the first time ever, Indigo looked at me like she was really listening. She looked around at what I know were invisible friends, and then she looked back at me. She didn't say a word. Mrs. Gallagher smiled at her, and at me. "Let's go get you back home to Daddy, Indigo," she said. "Goodbye, Heather."