“I love boats.” She hugged her stapled cut-out pictures of boats to her chest and grinned with a rapturous affection.

Cindy was special. Our class of sixth graders knew that she was different. She wasn’t like the rest of us. Years later I would realize that she was a special needs student. I was naive and in a class of boys who were competitive jerks trying to one-up each other.

Every day Cindy would show up to class with her wrinkled stack of magazine cutouts grinning that she loved boats. Ski boats, fishing boats, yachts, sailboats, it didn’t matter. “I love boats.” The guys would roll their eyes in disgust, tease her relentlessly, and the teacher would admonish them daily.

Cindy made a fatal mistake. After months of cradling her boats, she left them unattended for a brief moment. “My boats! Where are my boats! My boats! My boats!” She pleaded and cried and rocked back and forth in desperate anguish.

The boats were buried in the boy’s bathroom trash. Only two people knew it and nobody was confessing because the teacher was livid and it could mean big trouble . . . call your parents kind of trouble.

I regret it to this day. I’m sure the other boy does too.