The Julian Chapter: A Wonder Story Read Online Free

that,” I said. And I wasn’t joking.
    “No, darling,” said Mom, sitting on the other side of me. “We don’t need to burn anything. Look what I’ve done.”
    She picked up a different photo from the nightstand and handed it to me to look at. At first, I thought it was just another copy of the class picture, because it was exactly the same size as the class picture Dad had in his hands, and everything in it was exactly the same. I started to look away in disgust, but Mom pointed to a place on the photo—the place where Auggie used to be! He was nowhere in the photo.
    I couldn’t believe it! There was no trace of him!
    I looked up at Mom, who was beaming.
    “The magic of Photoshop!” she said happily, clapping her hands. “Now you can look at this picture and not have to have your memory of fifth grade tarnished,” she said.
    “That’s so cool!” I said. “How did you do that?”
    “I’ve gotten pretty good at Photoshop,” she answered. “Remember last year, how I made all the skies blue in the Hawaii pictures?”
    “You would never have known it rained every day,” answered Dad, shaking his head.
    “Laugh if you want,” said Mom. “But now, when I look at those pictures, I don’t have to be reminded of the bad weather that almost ruined our trip. I can remember it for the beautiful vacation that it was! Which is exactly how I want you to remember your fifth-grade year at Beecher Prep. Okay, Julian? Good memories. Not ugly ones.”
    “Thanks, Mom!” I said, hugging her tightly.
    I didn’t say it, of course, but even though she changed the skies to light blue on the photos, all I ever really remembered about our Hawaii trip was how cold and wet it was when we were there—despite the magic of Photoshop.

Look, I didn’t start out being mean. I mean, I’m not a mean kid! Sure, sometimes I make jokes, but they’re not mean jokes. They’re just teasing jokes. People have to lighten up a little! Okay, maybe sometimes my jokes are a little mean, but I only make those jokes behind someone’s back. I never say stuff to anyone’s face that will actually hurt someone. I’m not a bully like that! I’m not a hater, dudes!
    Attention, people! Stop being so sensitive!
    Some people totally got the whole Photoshop thing, and some didn’t. Henry and Miles thought it was so cool and wanted my mom to email their moms the photo. Amos thought it was “weird.” Charlotte completely disapproved. I don’t know what Jack thought, because he had gone over to the dark side by now. It’s like he totally abandoned his peeps this year and only hangs out with Auggie now. Which bugged me, because that meant I couldn’t hang out with him anymore. No way was I going to catch the “plague” from that freak. That was the name of the game I invented. The Plague. It was simple. If you touched Auggie, and you didn’t wash off the contamination, you died. Everyone in the whole grade played. Except Jack.
    And Summer.
    So here’s the strange thing. I’ve known Summer since we were in third grade, and I never really paid any attention to her, but this year Henry started liking Savanna and they were like, “going out.” Now, by “going out” I don’t mean like high school stuff, which would be kind of gross barf disgusting. All it meanswhen you’re “going out” is that you hang out together and meet each other at the lockers and sometimes go to the ice cream shop on Amesfort Avenue after school. So, first Henry started going out with Savanna, and then Miles started going out with Ximena. And I was like, “yo, what about me?” And then Amos said, “I’m going to ask Summer out,” and I was like, “no way, I’m asking her out!” So that’s when I started kind of liking Summer.
    But it totally bit that Summer, like Jack, was on Team Auggie. It meant I couldn’t hang out with her at all. I couldn’t even say “wassup” to her because the freak might think I was talking to him or something. So I told