Wonder by R. J. Palacio

had come back to check on me,” I said spitefully, “like you
said
you would.”
    “Oh God, Via,” said Mom, remembering now how she had completely ditched me last night. She put down the knife she was using to cut Auggie’s grapes in half (still a choking hazard for him because of the size of his palate). “I am so sorry. I fell asleep in Auggie’s room. By the time I woke up …”
    “I know, I know.” I nodded indifferently.
    Mom came over, put her hands on my cheeks, and lifted my face to look at her.
    “I’m really, really sorry,” she whispered. I could tell she was.
    “It’s okay!” I said.
    “Via …”
    “Mom, it’s fine.” This time I meant it. She looked so genuinely sorry I just wanted to let her off the hook.
    She kissed and hugged me, then returned to the grapes.
    “So, is something going on with Miranda?” she asked.
    “Just that she’s acting like a complete jerk,” I said.
    “Miranda’s not a jerk!” Auggie quickly chimed in.
    “She can be!” I yelled. “Believe me.”
    “Okay then, I’ll pick you up, no problem,” Mom said decisively, sweeping the half-grapes into a snack bag with the side of her knife. “That was the plan all along anyway. I’ll pick Auggie up from school in the car and then we’ll pick you up. We’ll probably get there about a quarter to four.”
    “No!” I said firmly, before she’d even finished.
    “Isabel, she can take the subway!” said Dad impatiently. “She’s a big girl now. She’s reading
War and Peace
, for crying out loud.”
    “What does
War and Peace
have to with anything?” answered Mom, clearly annoyed.
    “It means you don’t have to pick her up in the car like she’s alittle girl,” he said sternly. “Via, are you ready? Get your bag and let’s go.”
    “I’m ready,” I said, pulling on my backpack. “Bye, Mom! Bye, Auggie!”
    I kissed them both quickly and headed toward the door.
    “Do you even have a MetroCard?” Mom said after me.
    “Of course she has a MetroCard!” answered Dad, fully exasperated. “Yeesh, Momma! Stop worrying so much! Bye,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Bye, big boy,” he said to August, kissing him on the top of his head. “I’m proud of you. Have a good day.”
    “Bye, Daddy! You too.”
    Dad and I jogged down the stoop stairs and headed down the block.
    “Call me after school before you get on the subway!” Mom yelled at me from the window. I didn’t even turn around but waved my hand at her so she’d know I heard her. Dad did turn around, walking backward for a few steps.
    “
War and Peace
, Isabel!” he called out, smiling as he pointed at me.
“War and Peace!”

Genetics 101
    Both sides of Dad’s family were Jews from Russia and Poland. Poppa’s grandparents fled the pogroms and ended up in NYC at the turn of the century. Tata’s parents fled the Nazis and ended up in Argentina in the forties. Poppa and Tata met at a dance on the Lower East Side while she was in town visiting a cousin. They got married, moved to Bayside, and had Dad and Uncle Ben.
    Mom’s side of the family is from Brazil. Except for her mother, my beautiful Grans, and her dad, Agosto, who died before I was born, the rest of Mom’s family—all her glamorous aunts, uncles, and cousins—still live in Alto Leblon, a ritzy suburb south of Rio. Grans and Agosto moved to Boston in the early sixties, and had Mom and Aunt Kate, who’s married to Uncle Porter.
    Mom and Dad met at Brown University and have been together ever since. Isabel and Nate: like two peas in a pod. They moved to New York right after college, had me a few years later, then moved to a brick townhouse in North River Heights, the hippie-stroller capital of upper
upper
Manhattan, when I was about a year old.
    Not one person in the exotic mix of my family gene pool has ever shown any obvious signs of having what August has. I’ve pored over grainy sepia pictures of long-dead relatives in babushkas; black-and-white snapshots of