Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven Read Free Book Online Page A

I’m fat, it’s news to me. Plump, maybe. A little chubby. But this is the way I’ve always been. I take a good, hard look at Moses and the other boys and the girls over by the swings. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t look that much fatter than any of them.
    “I don’t think I am.”
    “Well then, you’re not only fat, you’re dumb.” The boys fall down with laughter. Moses’s face bunches up like a fist, and he opens his mouth so wide it looks like all the pigeons in Amos could nest there.
“Go home, Flabby Stout. The sun can’t shine when you come out…
”
He’s singing it to the tune of “Lullaby and Goodnight.”
“You’re so big you block the moon. Go home, Flabby, go to your room…”
    I think,
You’re the one that’s dumb.
And I move past him. I’m aiming for the swings, where I see Bailey Bishop along with a hundred other girls. Moses steps in front of me.
“Go home, Flabby Stout…”
    I step the other way, and he blocks my path again. So now I move toward the jungle gym, where I can sit in peace, but he says, “I can’t let you do that. You might break it.”
    “I won’t break it. I’ve been on it before.”
    “But you might. Your flab has probably cracked the foundation. The next time you go on it, I bet that whole thing’ll collapse. Maybe the playground too. You’re probably cracking it right now just standing here. You probably killed your mom by sitting on her.” The boys die over and over. One of them rolls along the ground, hooting his face off.
    I’m not as tall as Moses is, but I stare directly into his dark, soulless eyes. All I can think is
For the first time in my life, I know what it’s like to have someone hate me.
I can see the hate in there like it’s lodged in his pupils.
    I spend the rest of recess standing against the wall on the edge of the playground wondering what I’ve done to Moses Hunt to make him hate me and knowing that whatever it is, there’s no coming back from it. It’s my stomach that tells me
He will never like you no matter what you do, no matter how thin you are, no matter how nice you try to be to him.
This is a terrifying feeling. It’s the feeling of something turning. Of coming to a corner and going around it and seeing that the street ahead is dark and deserted or filled with wild dogs, but you can’t go back, only forward, right into the middle of the pack.
    I hear a shriek, and my friend Bailey Bishop jumps off the swing in midflight, legs reaching for the earth, hair sailing for the sky, bright gold as the sunrise.
    I wave but she doesn’t see me.
Doesn’t she notice I’m missing?
I wave again, but she’s too busy running. I think,
If I were Bailey Bishop, I’d run too.
She has legs as long as light poles.
If I were Bailey Bishop, I wouldn’t even look for me to see where I’d gone off to. I would just run and run and run.

NOW

The girl’s name is Iris Engelbrecht. These are the things I’ve learned in the past five minutes: She’s been heavy since birth, thanks to a double whammy of hypothyroidism and something called Cushing’s syndrome. Her parents are divorced, she has two older sisters, and everyone in her family is overweight.
    “You need to tell the principal.”
    Iris shakes her head. “No.”
    We are back inside the school, just the two of us. I’m trying to lead us toward the main hall, toward where the principal’s office is, but Iris is dragging her feet.
    “I’ll go with you.”
    “I don’t want to make it worse.”
    “What makes it worse is Dave Kaminski thinking he can do that to you.”
    “I’m not like you.” And what she means is
I’m not brave like you.
    “Then I’ll just go.” I walk away from her.
    “Don’t.” She catches up to me. “I mean, thanks for chasing after him, but I want the whole thing to go away, and it’s not going away if I tell. It does the opposite of going away. It gets so big I have to look at it all the time, and I don’t want to. It’s the first day of the