But when you’re 12 years old, the world looks different. I was 12 when I broke Jill’s mom’s blender trying to combine frozen fish sticks, Hershey’s syrup and Goldfish crackers. I was 12 when I started seventh grade with a locker of my very own. And I was not yet 13 when Matt Quady kissed me at his family’s annual Fourth of July barbecue. The world, to most 12-year-olds, is a reflection of themselves. Eli’s friend, Simon, explained his understanding of it to me. He said there are three kinds of people: friendlys, hostiles and neutrals. “If someone walks up to me I don’t know,” he told me, shouting over the music from his headphones, “I consider them a hostile.”

I talked to Eli about this as we walked home from the park that day, Simon trailing behind jerking his elbows and legs awkwardly along with the music. Eli let out a breath before he answered, a habit he has that can seem like a sigh, but is more part of his thought process. He cocked his head to the side, his thick black hair standing straight in the wind. His eyes, at the same time brown and green, narrowed. He pursed his lips, full and red and chapped, and spoke carefully in his high-pitched voice. “Um, that’s just Simon. That’s pretty dumb.” He begins his sentences with “Um” but that’s just another habit of kids his age. It doesn’t signal insecurity so much as the rush he’s in to get his words out.

I heard what I wanted to hear, that Eli, at least, doesn’t regard all people that way. But it occurred to me that Simon’s terminology didn’t even have to do with all people in the first place. It described his view on the people he dealt with in his world: friendly kids, hostile kids, neutral kids. Adults – or grown-ups, let’s say – are a whole other species.

And I could remember that. I remembered how I went on auto pilot when an adult told me to quiet down, do my homework, finish my dinner, bring a sweater. Like Eli, I would usually comply, but not always. At age 12, I loved my parents like Eli loves his. I adored some teachers, hated others. Eli’s the same way. I didn’t understand the issue of respect. “Don’t disrespect me!” I remember teachers barking at students who talked during class after being told repeatedly not to. But 12-year-olds don’t think in terms of respect. They might not do as they are told, but they consider all adults authority figures in one capacity or another.