I had a friend in middle school, who I will call V. We painted denim jackets with craft-store acrylics and swapped shoes during recess, just one shoe each, so we’d have mismatched uniform loafers by the end of the day. V’s feet turned inward when she walked, two small compasses pointing at each other instead of north, and one afternoon the other kids decided this was worth imitating in the hallway: a whole parade of children walking like her, laughing as though her gait were a personal failing rather than simply the way her body worked.

On a school trip not long after, I went through my things and realised I’d packed my belongings in a plastic cellophane sack, the semi-translucent kind that crinkles if you so much as breathe near it, while the kids around me carried totes and Herschel backpacks that would, in a few short years, evolve into Neverfulls and Goyards. The headmistress looked at my bag the way you’d look at a unicorn that had wandered into a stable.

“Stop being weird,” she said. I understood instantly that the word had just been handed to me as a verdict on class, personality, status and belonging. Weird is a cruel word to a kid. Crueler still when you’re an adult and can still recite every time you were called it. Most people called weird in childhood weren’t hearing it as a compliment.