R.J. Palacio - Wonder

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2012 by R. J. Palacio
Motion Picture Artwork 2017 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Palacio, R. J.
Wonder / by R. J. Palacio.
p. cm.
Summary: Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.
ISBN 978-0-375-86902-0 (trade) ISBN 978-0-375-96902-7 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-375-89988-1 (ebook)
[1. Abnormalities, HumanFiction. 2. Self-importanceFiction. 3. Middle schoolsFiction. 4. SchoolsFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P17526Wo 2012
[Fic]dc23
2011027133

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v3.1_r15

For Russell, Caleb, and Joseph

Fate smiled and destiny

laughed as she came to my cradle

Natalie Merchant, Wonder

I know Im not an ordinary ten-year-old kid. I mean, sure, I do ordinary things. I eat ice cream. I ride my bike. I play ball. I have an XBox. Stuff like that makes me ordinary. I guess. And I feel ordinary. Inside. But I know ordinary kids dont make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. I know ordinary kids dont get stared at wherever they go.

If I found a magic lamp and I could have one wish, I would wish that I had a normal face that no one ever noticed at all. I would wish that I could walk down the street without people seeing me and then doing that look-away thing. Heres what I think: the only reason Im not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way.

But Im kind of used to how I look by now. I know how to pretend I dont see the faces people make. Weve all gotten pretty good at that sort of thing: me, Mom and Dad, Via. Actually, I take that back: Vias not so good at it. She can get really annoyed when people do something rude. Like, for instance, one time in the playground some older kids made some noises. I dont even know what the noises were exactly because I didnt hear them myself, but Via heard and she just started yelling at the kids. Thats the way she is. Im not that way.

Via doesnt see me as ordinary. She says she does, but if I were ordinary, she wouldnt feel like she needs to protect me as much. And Mom and Dad dont see me as ordinary, either. They see me as extraordinary. I think the only person in the world who realizes how ordinary I am is me.

My name is August, by the way. I wont describe what I look like. Whatever youre thinking, its probably worse.

Next week I start fifth grade. Since Ive never been to a real school before, I am pretty much totally and completely petrified. People think I havent gone to school because of the way I look, but its not that. Its because of all the surgeries Ive had. Twenty-seven since I was born. The bigger ones happened before I was even four years old, so I dont remember those. But Ive had two or three surgeries every year since then (some big, some small), and because Im little for my age, and I have some other medical mysteries that doctors never really figured out, I used to get sick a lot. Thats why my parents decided it was better if I didnt go to school. Im much stronger now, though. The last surgery I had was eight months ago, and I probably wont have to have any more for another couple of years.

Mom homeschools me. She used to be a childrens-book illustrator. She draws really great fairies and mermaids. Her boy stuff isnt so hot, though. She once tried to draw me a Darth Vader, but it ended up looking like some weird mushroom-shaped robot. I havent seen her draw anything in a long time. I think shes too busy taking care of me and Via.

I cant say I always wanted to go to school because that wouldnt be exactly true. What I wanted was to go to school, but only if I could be like every other kid going to school. Have lots of friends and hang out after school and stuff like that.

I have a few really good friends now. Christopher is my best friend, followed by Zachary and Alex. Weve known each other since we were babies. And since theyve always known me the way I am, theyre used to me. When we were little, we used to have playdates all the time, but then Christopher moved to Bridgeport in Connecticut. Thats more than an hour away from where I live in North River Heights, which is at the top tip of Manhattan. And Zachary and Alex started going to school. Its funny: even though Christophers the one who moved far away, I still see him more than I see Zachary and Alex. They have all these new friends now. If we bump into each other on the street, theyre still nice to me, though. They always say hello.

I have other friends, too, but not as good as Christopher and Zack and Alex were. For instance, Zack and Alex always invited me to their birthday parties when we were little, but Joel and Eamonn and Gabe never did. Emma invited me once, but I havent seen her in a long time. And, of course, I always go to Christophers birthday. Maybe Im making too big a deal about birthday parties.

I like when Mom tells this story because it makes me laugh so much. Its not funny in the way a joke is funny, but when Mom tells it, Via and I just start cracking up.

So when I was in my moms stomach, no one had any idea I would come out looking the way I look. Mom had had Via four years before, and that had been such a walk in the park (Moms expression) that there was no reason to run any special tests. About two months before I was born, the doctors realized there was something wrong with my face, but they didnt think it was going to be bad. They told Mom and Dad I had a cleft palate and some other stuff going on. They called it small anomalies.

There were two nurses in the delivery room the night I was born. One was very nice and sweet. The other one, Mom said, did not seem at all nice or sweet. She had very big arms and (here comes the funny part), she kept farting. Like, shed bring Mom some ice chips, and then fart. Shed check Moms blood pressure, and fart. Mom says it was unbelievable because the nurse never even said excuse me! Meanwhile, Moms regular doctor wasnt on duty that night, so Mom got stuck with this cranky kid doctor she and Dad nicknamed Doogie after some old TV show or something (they didnt actually call him that to his face). But Mom says that even though everyone in the room was kind of grumpy, Dad kept making her laugh all night long.