The first time Christine had an awareness that she was "weird" was in first grade. It was recess, and she had been out with her cousin, Dustin, playing in a sandbox. Recess was the only time Christine and Dustin could really hang out during school, as they had different classes.
You see, the idea was to make a tunnel in the sandbox that would lead through the ocean. Looking back at it, Christine realized it was a silly idea, but hey! She and Dustin were little at the time. Anyways, after a while, Christine was getting bored.
"We should take a break!" Dustin suggested. Christine agreed and moved to sit on the edge of the sandbox, Dustin following her. "This is going to be the coolest tunnel yet!"
"Yeah!" Christine agreed again, getting off of the edge and standing. "It's going to be the biggest and coolest tunnel in the whole wide world!" she said, a bit loudly as she did a dramatic spin. That was when she heard a few giggles from some kids watching from the playground. She turned around quickly, looking at two boys who were now just talking to each other.
Had they been laughing at her? Or were they discussing something different? Christine continued to stare at the boys, not paying attention to whatever Dustin was now talking about. This continued for a bit before she felt a tap on her shoulder.
"Chrissy?"
Christine let out a gasp from surprise and whipped her head around to look at her cousin. "Oh! I'm sorry." She quickly said and looked down. When she started to look back up, she heard a laugh and saw Dustin sticking his tongue out at someone. Before she could turn around and see who, the bell rang.
Everyone went inside, Christine still thinking about the boys from earlier. Was it really her that had been being laughed at? Maybe she was just overreacting, the two boys had been talking, so maybe that's what it was.
Yeah.
But then there was that other laugh, and Dustin feeling the need to obviously retaliate with his whole sticking-his-tongue-out thing. Was he trying to get them to leave her alone?
She tried her best to forget about it for the rest of the day.
Another time Christine was aware of her "weirdness" was in third grade. She and Dustin had the same class that year, thankfully. Currently, the teacher was allowing the kids to work together to solve some math problems together in partners.
Of course, Christine and Dustin made the obvious choice of each other as partners for this assignment. As they worked on division problems, which they had just started learning, Christine was getting bored. She tapped her pencil against the table and stared down at the equation she and Dustin were currently on quietly.
As Dustin attempted to figure out the problem, Christine couldn't help but just.. stare at the paper. She was trying to think of the answer, really, it's just that she was starting to get bored.
So that's when she looked at Dustin and stuck out her tongue at him playfully, making a silly noise. Dustin heard the noise and looked up from his paper, retaliating by doing the same thing as Christine. Christine did the same again, this time a bit louder.
And so it continued, the two of them giggling to themselves before the teacher walked over. "Dustin, Christine, you can play later. Finish your worksheets, please."
"Yes ma'am!" Christine had looked away from Dustin and back down at her paper, hearing the two other kids at their table whisper to each other.
She then heard Dustin stick out his tongue again and make a weird noise at this kids, somehow sounding threatening unlike how he did when it had been just him and Christine seconds before.
