When Auggie describes why his first month of school was difficult, he said, "Every new class I had was like a new chance for kids to 'not stare' at me. Why does he use quotation marks around the words, 'not stare'?
He wasn't expecting them to stare at him as much as they did
He expected kids to stare, but most of them didn't.
Although the other kids pretended not to stare, they did.