Page 5 - I am Noah

CHAPTER ONE | Balancing School, Family,

and Friends

The bell rang, and an army of students flooded out the

front door. I saw Ash and his crew in the flood of students. They
were kicking and shoving students out of the way. Benjamin ran
toward me, and I knew why. Two seconds later, Ash stood

towering above me, chuckling with his group. “ Well, well, well,
isn’t it Noah the Nerd and his Best Friend, Benjamin.” “ Hey,

Noah is not a nerd,” Benjamin shouts back. I hiss at Benjamin and
tell him to be quiet. “I see that Itty Bitty Benjamin over here is

standing up for you.”. Ash laughs, and his group follows. I wish
that my mom would pull up quickly to the school so I could

escape Ash and his apprentices. A couple of seconds later, the
crossing guard comes out and tells us to move it and go to our
grade level line. I yank Benjamin by his hand and drag him to the

4th-grade pick-up line. We watch as Ash makes faces at us while
he trudges himself to the 5th-grade line. I can tell he hates

leaving school because his favorite hobby is teasing other kids. I
sigh and focus on the cars pulling up, hoping to find my mom’s
car soon. “ Hey, that’s my ride; I’ll see you tomorrow Noah, bye!”

Benjamin says as he hops into his dad's SUV. 5 minutes later,
seven more 4th graders are waiting in line, including me.

I finally see my mom’s Honda, and I run in sweat to the
sliding door open. I already know my mom’s first five questions.

“So…” my mom starts to speak. School was good, and we had a
math test, got a 100, and finished all the lunch, but the

mayonnaise on the burger was a little salty. I said, stopping my
mom from asking any more. “ Wow, you answered all my
questions without even letting me say a word.” my mom replied.

The rest of the drive was quiet except when my mom got a call
from work. She works as an author, and her editor just got an