Hi, I am Arlo, the pencil. Even though I am an ordinary object, I don't feel so ordinary. I once was what the other pencils called special. I got everything I wanted, and I was the favorite.

There was never a day when I wouldn't get used, and I was not very grateful. One significant event changed that. That event was the very worst thing that could happen to a pencil.

So one day, I was just minding my business when Billy the bully came up to Mateo's desk. You could never guess what he did,he snapped me right in half!  

"That's what you get for taking my pencil in kindergarten, Mateo!" I could not believe that Billy the bully broke me! Before that, I didn't know why he bullied Mateo so much. Turns out that they had some unresolved problems. Children are so disrespectful!

When Mateo got back from the bathroom, he was shocked. He got over it quickly, though. About .5 seconds after he figured out that I had literally been mauled, he asked Maccena for a pencil. To make matters worse, he taped me up and shoved me in his pocket, like I was some used gum wrapper.

When we walked through the hallway, I got a chance to talk to this new pencil. I really didn't think he was all that.

"I know that Mateo thinks that you are so much better than I, but really, you are nothing but a pen..." 

Just as I was giving him a piece of my mind, I fell right out of the pocket and tumbled to the floor.

Luckily, I was still taped up so I could move around with both ends of my body, but that didn't help hide the fact that I was by myself in the middle of the hallway. I thought to myself that I was safe until the next bell rang because there would be too many people in the hallway. I just set my mind on getting into a classroom.