#13: Lewis becomes obsessed:

Lewis is very intelligent, but he displays odd and compulsive behaviors. He is really funny though. He is very good at spelling, and even won his classroom spelling bee, which made him a participant in the school spelling bee. He practiced like an anorexic ballerina for the entire week before the school spelling bee. On the big day, he told me he could not be more ready.

There are about twenty contestants in the spelling bee. One of the students walks up to the microphone to spell, and Lewis gets up out of his chair and walks toward her, staring intently at her shoes.

The girl had the kind of shoes on that light up when you walk. Lewis is fixated on these shoes like I have never seen him fixate in anything before. He immediately gets up and walks over to her, gets on his hands and knees and stares, places his face about 8 inches from her shoes, and stares right at them. He is literally on his hands and knees, at the microphone, staring at this girls shoes. Snickering could be heard faintly throughout the gym.

The administrator of the spelling bee warned Lewis that he needed to return to his seat. He may have heard her, but he was not listening. He was asking the girl questions about her shoes, and she just stared at him in silent disbelief.

She warns him one more time to return to his seat, he pays no attention to her and is disqualified. He still will not leave the stage. I had to go up there and remove him. It was not pretty. I lied to him and told him that I had a pair of the light up sneakers in my classroom. This was the only reason he followed me off the stage.

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