He always had, right from the beginning. When Tom first started school, some of the other kids bullied him. Why? Who knows, but Tom had three possible strikes against him: he was small, he was a total nerd, and he was Japanese Canadian. There are always racists. You can’t get away from them. And there are always bullies. Do I sound like I’m fifty years old? Well that’s the way I feel sometimes. My best friend at school was Liesel Fischer. Liesel noticed Tom being bullied at lunch hour one day. She pointed out Brad Stoker and Frank Drake, well-known tenth-grade morons, at the edge of the field picking on Tom Okada. I told Liesel that Tom was the new kid at my foster, and we ran over to help him. Tom had been standing, rigid with anger, fists clenched. I yelled at them to pick on someone their own size. All that got me was an earful of insults. It seemed to affect Tom though. He threw himself at Drake, but he didn’t get far because Stoker tripped him. Tom fell to his knees. Liesel and I jumped in.
