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[Please Save my Earth Intro Music plays]
>> Ginny: [Narrating] the first time I ever saw Smitty Tibbs, I was having one
of the worst days of my life. My brother Paul, probably my best friend in the world
up and left for college. It was the biggest shock I’d ever had. And then, to top it
off.
A month and a half before Paul actually left; my dad comes out with this announcement…
We’re moving.
[Pause]
And so here I am, thousands of miles away from
home, in the middle of a school filled with
hundreds of people who didn’t even know they
didn’t know me. I felt very alone. And I hated it.
>> Hally: I don’t know your face. You a transfer?
Or did you just move in?
>> Ginny: Just moved in.
>> Hally: I’m Hally.
>> Ginny: Ginny.
>> Hally: Not a bad start, Pete is giving you the eye.
>> Ginny: Is that good?
>> Hally: Definitely.
>> Teacher: Okay people.
>> Ginny: [Narrating] I never got the pleasure of
embarrassing Pete. Didn’t even see him. It was him
that caught me by the eyes, and made me forget just
about everything else in the world. He was beautiful.
He had a sort of angelic air, like he’d never had a
bad thought in his life.
And strange... there was something really strange about him…
>> Teacher: Oh and Ms. Christianson, remember to
pick up a syllabus after class.
[Pause]
>> Hally: I’ll make sure she picks one up.
[Music fades out]
>> Hally: I’d forgotten how pretty he is till I saw
your face this morning. Guess I should have warned you,
but I really didn’t even think of it.
>> Sonya: Hey Hally!
>> Ginny: Warn me? Is there…something wrong with him?
>> Hally: Smitty. Some people think he’s autistic.
>> Ginny: Smitty?
>> Hally: His name is Smitty Tibbs. Sounds like a
name you’d give a puppy or something, doesn’t it?
Anyway, he’s kinda weird.
>> Ginny: What is it he does that’s weird?
>> Hally: Smitty has never said a word to anybody. He
never smiles, frowns, cries. He’s always been that way.
If you talk to him, he doesn’t react, its like he
doesn’t hear or see you.
>> Ginny: That is weird.
>> Will: Hey Hally.
>> Hally: Hey Will!
>> Hally: The REALLY weird thing is, he’s a total genius.
Top honor roll, every semester. Rumor is Mr. Williams
secretly had Smitty sit down and make up an exam for him
and then Mrs. Flecher, the principal, gave the test to
the whole faculty in a faculty meeting one day.
>> Ginny: No way.
>> Hally: Well it COULD be true...
>> Sonya: Hallyyy!
>> Hally: He should probably be at MIT or Johns Hopkins
or something.
>> Ginny: I’m amazed he’s made it this far alive. He
probably wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in my old school.
>> Hally: Well he really had it hard for awhile…one day in
the second grade a whole bunch of kids had knocked him down
on the playground. It was awful, they were kicking him and
it was just...I was furious. But along came Caulder, like
an avenging angel out of heaven, and within about 30 seconds,
those kids were scattered. It was awesome. Nobody messed with
him after that cause they were all too scared of Caulder.
Worst they do now is make stupid jokes and call him ‘Alien,’
which isn’t totally off.
>> Hally: (Sighs) Advanced trig, welcome to the math class
from hell.
[Soft Guitar Plays]
>> Caulder: Hey neighbor.
>> Ginny: Hello.
>> Caulder: My name is Caulder, we have some classes together.
>> Ginny: Oh, I’m Ginny. I heard something about you today.
Something Hally told me.
>> Caulder: Oh?
>> Ginny: It was about that guy in my homeroom.
>> Caulder: Smitty. He's my claim to fame.
>> Ginny: So uh, how long have you lived here?
>> Caulder: All my life, and Smitty lives right over there.
>> Ginny: He lives over there?
>> Caulder: Yup. So- how did your first day turn out?
>> Ginny: Well, Hally was about the only person who really
talked to me.
>> Caulder: Ah Hally, the Woman of the People. She knows
just about everyone.
>> Ginny: She told me about how you kind of watch over
Smitty, and how people think he’s autistic or something.
>> Caulder: He’s not. He could talk if he wanted to.
>> Ginny: Yeah…he just hasn’t felt like it for seventeen years.
>> Caulder: Well, look. He makes his own choices all the time,
his grades are perfect. He had the top score on the SAT’s, and
he scored higher in verbal than in math. He writes papers.There
is no way he's nonverbal. He just doesn’t interact socially…
I’ve known him my whole life. He’s inside there.
>> Ginny: So do you like, hang out with him?
>> Caulder: As much as you can, I guess.
>> Ginny: And he’s never said a word to you?
>> Caulder: Not once in seventeen years.
[Guitar fades. Mr. Brightside by the Killers plays quietly.]
>> Ginny: [Narrating] It was after that, when we started
hanging out after school. Caulder decided it would be good
to start study sessions. And on weekends we started doing
things together. We made a tradition out of Friday nights
to go to the university’s Classic Film Society, and watch
old movies. My parent’s were hardly around to notice I was
gone so much; they were too busy fixing up their new place
of business.
>> Caulder: Stuck?
>> Ginny: Yeah, I’m not sure what to do here.
>> Caulder: Lets see…hmm.
>> Ginny: You get it?
>> Caulder: Nope...I know exactly where we can get help
with this. Come on. Get your stuff together.
>> Ginny: And where are we going?
>> Caulder: Smitty’s.
>> Ginny: Oh…uh huh.
>> Caulder: I’m serious. He can explain this to you.
Come on.
>> Ginny: [Narrating] So okay, I was a bit scared of
meeting him. Well, really scared. Anything like this,
anything out of the norm, anything weird, I just freak out!
What was I going to do? Besides throw myself on the floor.
So I’m a coward. I couldn’t let Caulder know, he was pretty
much my best friend now.