Chapter 10

Torey decided to do a project with her students where they plant hyacinths in pots to put on their windowsill for the winter. Tomaso ends up getting frustrated with the project, first saying that he wanted to do his own to give to his father (who is no longer living), and ends up smashing the little pots. When Torey replaces the pots with milk cartons and finally gets the students back to work, Tomaso gets frustrated again and starts making mean comments to Torey about how stupid the project is and how it is her fault that it isn't working. He also tells Torey that if it were his father helping with the flowers, they would be turning out perfectly. This is where Torey makes a comment that she knew immediately after was inappropriate. She tells Tomaso, "Your dad really makes you angry doesn't he?". To this Tomaso immediately starts tearing up and runs out of the classroom. Torey ends up having to find a teacher aide to watch her classroom while she searched for Tomaso. She finally finds him in the auditorium backstage where they were storing old desks. He was in the back corner underneath all of them. Torey apologizes and tries to get Tomaso to come out, but he tells her that all she ever does is talk and never listens. When she listens to him, he tells her that he wants to kill himself because life is too hard (he is only 10 years old). He also talks about how everyone hates him. To this Torey tells him that Lori doesn't hate him, and he tells her that he doesn't hate Lori either. When he accuses Torey of hating him she tells him that she wishes she could find a way to tell him that she really cared about him so that he would believe her. Tomaso ends up crying again, and eventually comes out and hugs Torey.

This chapter was extremely emotional because Tomaso expresses his sadness with his life and the belief that everyone who has met him, hates him. Of course no one wants to be in this type of situation, hearing that a student/any person is so sad that they don't want to live anymore, but if I do have this situation come upon me I only hope I can handle it as well as Torey did, and to make the person feel like someone cares.