Oh yeah . . . check out how they move.

Look at the way they swagger.

Notice their sunglasses. Yow!

In the olden days, last year, we were al one big pod of beans.

We were a mixed bag, but

somehow it worked.

Yep. ose were the good old days . . .

I watched as the beans I knew so wel —the beans from my own pod—became the cool beans.

Oh, they were soooooo cooooool.

ME?

Wel , I mostly stayed the same.

Sure, I made some smal changes.

I wore sunglasses.

“Too big.”

I was stil picked last for everything.

My clothes never seemed

to fit.

“HONK!”

I snorted when

I laughed.

“WHUMP!”

I walked into stuff.

I was an uncool bean, for sure.

It seemed like there were two types of beans in the world.

ere were the cool beans . . .

e days al blended together.

I lived my life and things were just . . . okay.

I took tests and ate lunches and mostly kept to myself.

e cool beans continued being cool.

I mean, sure, I missed them. A bit.

I was in the cafeteria. I dropped my lunch on my loafers.

“Oh no.

Not again.”

But then something sort of miraculous happened.

Out of nowhere, one of the cool beans helped me clean it up. He didn’t even say anything. He just gave me a nod. at was it.

at afternoon, I was sitting in class. I wasn’t real y paying attention.

I didn’t notice, but our teacher had cal ed on me. Everybody stared. I sat there in silence.

Nobody said anything.

But then one of the cool beans stood up and came over to me. Everybody watched.

She leaned in close and whispered, “Hey.

e teacher asked you to read from page 32.”

en she gave me a quick wink and went back to her seat.

I walked home with a goofy smile on my face.

I smiled al the way through dinner.

Somebody had my back.

After that, I started hanging out with the cool beans again.

“How have you bean?

Get it? How have you

BEAN?”

Not al the time.

But sometimes.

roughout al of this, I realized that it’s not about how you look or any of that other sil y stuff.

“You need a hand?”

“Yes, please.”

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