A strict-looking woman walks into the room and over to the whiteboard. She picks up a marker and slides it down the board. It makes a squeaking noise, like it’s out of ink, and she shakes her head before throwing it back down on the tray in disgust. Yikes. Her hair’s pulled back into a bun so tight it looks like her eyes are going to pop out of her face.
“Open your books to page two hundred forty-three,” she says, popping the top off a new marker and writing MRS. WALKER on the board in big, angry-looking letters. The bell hasn’t even rung yet, but somehow all of the students are here. That’s ridiculous, starting class before the bell even rings. How will you know if you’re late or not? How will—RINNNNNGGG. The bell goes off. Okay, then.
“Who can tell me the answer to problem number four?” Mrs. Walker asks. So much for a personal introduction.
I take a deep breath. Let’s see, number four. This doesn’t look too hard. I think it has to do with the quadratic formula. I pull a piece of paper out of my binder and copy down the problem with my pencil. I start to plug in the numbers, but before I’m even done, Crissa’s hand shoots up.
“It’s twenty-seven,” she says before Mrs. Walker can even call on her. “The answer is twenty-seven.”
“Right,” Mrs. Walker says. “What about number seven?”
The class bends back down over their books, and I look around suspiciously for calculators. They must be using calculators. In high school you’re allowed to use them; I’ve seen some of the older kids with graphing calculators. But graphing calculators were definitely not on the list of things to bring for school supplies, all it said was that we needed paper and pencils, a binder, and—
“Scarlett Northon!” Mrs. Walker yelps, and I jump. My pencil goes flying through the air and lands on the floor a few feet away from me.
“Yes?” I squeak. I slide my foot over the carpet and try to reach the pencil that’s on the floor. Almost there. I try to slide it back to me with the bottom of my shoe, but it’s too far away. It doesn’t help that Mrs. Walker is looking at me with a very intense look.
“Number seven. What is the answer?”
The whole class turns to look at me. Actually, this isn’t true. Only about half the class. Okay, so no one is really looking at me, but it FEELS like they are. The silence is starting to stretch. I rummage through my pencil case for a pen, so I can at least attempt to do the problem.
“Scarlett,” Mrs. Walker says. She folds her arms over her massive chest. “We’re waiting. If you don’t know the answer, please say, ‘I don’t know.’”
I’m scribbling furiously. Nine times two divided by three is … seven—no, six … minus two, carry the one … “Seventeen and one-eighth!” I announce triumphantly. Take that, Mrs. Walker and all you classmates who seem to be staring at me!
Mrs. Walker fixes her cold stare at me, then turns to Tia. “Tia?” she asks.
“Nine and three quarters,” Tia reports.
“Very good,” Mrs. Walker says. “I see most of you are having no trouble with the quadratic formula, so I see no reason for a review.” She walks over to the board. “Now open your notebooks and get ready to write down everything I say in EXCRUCIATING detail.”
Excruciating detail. Yikes. I open my notebook hastily and then pick my pencil up off the floor. I feel tears starting to build behind my eyes, and I slide my fake glasses up and brush them away with the sleeve of my uniform. I will not let anyone see me cry. Besides, it was only one wrong answer. And it’s the first day. No one’s even going to remember it. I take a deep breath and turn back to the board so that I don’t miss anything. But not before I catch Crissa looking at me and see the smirk that crosses her face before she turns back around to face the front.
That night, all the eighth graders meet downstairs in the common room of the dorm for “get-to-know-you games.” I am so not in the mood. The rest of my day was stressful at best. My classes are horrible. I’m behind in everything. (Although math is definitely the worst. When Mrs. Walker found out I didn’t know how to convert fractions, she thought I was joking and almost laughed right in my face. When she realized I wasn’t, her look turned to one of horror, and she told me we’d have to set up a time to talk, then sent me on my way with an extra review worksheet that no one else had to do.)
Then, at lunch, I had to ask some random girls if I could sit with them, and they had no interest in talking about anything that was remotely interesting. All they wanted to talk about was debate team. Snooze. I told them I was on the basketball team, but they totally weren’t impressed. And speaking of basketball, I was so exhausted after my day of stress, that I fell asleep on my bed after school, sleeping through my first basketball practice of the season. I’m about to flunk out, and it’s only the first day.
Also, why is no one here being nice to me? At my old school, people were at least a little bit nice to new people. Even if they just pretended to want to show them around the school to get out of class, they at least tried. So far, no one here has even attempted to talk to me. And from what I can tell, Crissa is the most popular girl here. How can this be? It’s like this place is the opposite of any kind of stereotypes you’ve ever heard. Here you’re popular for being smart and plain, where a good pair of Christian Louboutins and a Fendi belt get you nowhere. No one even seems too impressed by my Chanel glasses. Sigh.
“Welcome,” Crissa says from the front of the room when I arrive in the common room. I guess she’s in charge of the games. I slide down on the floor next to Tia. I’m wearing a cute pair of Seven jeans, a purple shirt that I found at this really cool flea market, and purple Skechers.
“Hey,” I say to Tia. “Why is she in charge?”
“She’s president of our class.” Tia’s still wearing her uniform. Most of the other girls are wearing pajama pants. Hmm. Does fitting in here mean I’m going to have to give up my whole wardrobe? That would be a shame. Although it does explain why the closets are so small.
“Already?” How can we have a president already? Shouldn’t there be elections?
“She was president last year, so she gets to keep it until the new elections are held next month.”
Oh. Right.
“It’s time to play four truths and a lie!” Crissa exclaims from the front of the room. She’s sitting on a high-backed chair, and since everyone else is sitting on the floor, she’s looking down on us all. Fitting. Everyone groans.
“I know, I know,” Crissa says. “It sucks since we all already know each other, but that’s my job!” Everyone laughs, like she’s said the funniest thing ever. Well, she does seem to have that whole slightly snotty, I’m-better-than-you routine down pat.
“Now, we’ll start on this side of the room.” She points to her right. Which is where I’m sitting. Lovely. “You all know how it works. You have to say five facts about yourself, four of them are true, and one of them is a lie. Then everyone has to decide which one is a lie, and then it’s the next person’s turn!”
Hmm. “How do you win?” I ask.
Crissa ignores me. “So! We’ll start with you, Amber!”
I look next to me and see the blond girl from English this morning. True to form, she looks nervous. “Um, okay,” she says. “Um, okay. Um … I have a brother, I don’t like pink, I’m good at math, I have trouble falling asleep, and my favorite food is pizza.”
Everyone in the room groans. “The lie is that you don’t like pink,” Tia says from the other side of me. “Bor-ing.”
“I’m sorry,” Amber says, shrugging. “I couldn’t think of anything you don’t already know.”
Crissa rolls her eyes. “Scarlett,” she says, “it’s your turn.”
“Okay,” I say. “But how do you win?”
“You don’t,” she says. “It’s a get-to-know-you game, not a competition.” She looks like it’s taking all her strength not to yell at me. It’s not my fault I don’t know how to play. Whatever happened to just going around the room and introducing yourself?
“
Okay, let’s see.” I rack my brain for some truths and lies about me. I decide to take a page from Amber’s book and keep it simple and boring. “I’ve never played basketball in my life, I’m an only child, I don’t like chocolate, my favorite color is purple, and …” I try to come up with one more truth about myself.
But before I can, Crissa chimes in. “… and you came here for a really mysterious reason that you don’t want anyone to know about?”
An awkward silence falls across the group. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me, and the air suddenly feels thick, like a rubber band is squeezing the room. I look down at my hands. “Oh, sorry,” Crissa says, forcing a laugh. “I was just joking around.” She doesn’t sound sorry. I think that’s her pattern—she says a lot of things without really sounding them: happy to meet you, sorry, just joking around, etc.
“I think the lie is that you don’t like chocolate,” Amber pipes up. “No, no, wait. I think you said that to make us think that’s the lie, but it isn’t.” She bites her lip and considers. “I think it’s that purple isn’t your fave color.”
“You’re right,” I say, finding my voice and throwing Amber a grateful smile. “It’s pink.”
The rest of the game passes uneventfully, except for when Tia reveals that having her first kiss over the summer isn’t a lie, and everyone has to stop and talk about it for, like, half an hour. It’s actually kind of interesting. Apparently it was some boy who lives near her, and they’d been hanging out together all summer, and then finally before she left for school he decided to kiss her. She said it was a good kiss, not too slimy and not too dry.
When we get back to the room, I look at the mound of books on my desk. After my little nap this afternoon, I haven’t done any of my homework. I open my assignment book and take a look at what I have to do. Hmm. Science reading, the math worksheet plus the regular assignment of ten problems, two social studies “mini-essays,” and a bunch of comprehension questions and vocabulary words for English. They said they’d ease us into it slowly, and already I have more homework than I ever had at my old school.
“Don’t worry,” Crissa says, from where she’s lounging on her bed. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Get used to what?” I ask, trying to pretend like I have no clue what she’s talking about.
“All the work.”
“I’m not unused to it,” I say, which makes no sense. Crissa just smirks. She’s reading her social studies and chewing on a gummy worm. My eyes narrow. Maybe I just need to break her down and eventually we will be BFF. That happens a lot in movies and books—people start out hating each other and then become the best of friends. Like in Legally Blonde. Plus Crissa is very smart and it wouldn’t hurt to have her helping me with my homework. I work better in pairs, anyway. Brianna and I used to do our homework together almost every night. Well, until she, you know, stopped speaking to me.
Crissa’s alarm clock goes off, and she reaches over and turns it off without looking.
“What was that for?” I ask.
“My hour of social studies is over,” she says. “Rachel and Tia are coming over here to strategize soccer.”
“Already?” Today’s the first day of school. What can they possibly have to strategize about? Could this girl be any more anal?
“Well, I’m the captain.” She grabs another gummy worm out of the bag on her bed. Of course she’s the captain. I feel a tightness in my chest for a second, like I’m going to cry. Which is silly. I mean, just because everyone is going to be talking about soccer, and I’m going to be stuck on the basketball team is no reason to get upset. I’m sure there are loads of cool girls on the basketball team, who will be really nice to me, and we’ll all have strategy sessions together in my room late at night while eating junk food and looking at magazines.
I sit down at my desk and open my science book. I’m about ten pages into reading about cell mitosis (bor-ing), when Tia and Rachel show up at our room.
“It’s time to talk about kicking some boo-tay!” Tia says. It’s nine o’clock at night, and yet she’s wearing a pair of navy blue shorts, a white T-shirt, and what appear to be shin guards and soccer cleats. Rachel follows behind her, wearing a similar outfit.
Crissa jumps off the bed and runs over to them. They jump into the air, high-five, and say something that sounds like “Hey rah rah something something Brookline Wildcats, gooo Wildcats rah sis something.” It’s all very confusing. I hope that’s not, like, their cheer. They need a good choreographer.
“Wow,” I say. “That’s cool. What is it?”
Crissa looks shocked. “Oh,” she says, swishing her hair over her shoulder. “I forgot you were here.” She glances at Tia and Rachel. Um, where else would I be? This is my room. And I was just talking to her a few minutes ago. “That’s our secret soccer club cheer. We’re actually not supposed to do it in front of you unless you’re on the team.”
Great. First she brings out the fact that I don’t want anyone knowing why I’m here, and now she’s making me feel like an outsider in my own room.
“Oh,” I say, hoping I sound nonchalant. “That’s cool. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
I sit back down at my desk as the three of them pile onto Crissa’s bed and start talking about their practice tomorrow. My eyes feel all scratchy, and what with that making it hard to read, and the fact that the three amigas are talking and giggling like I’m not trying to study, I decide I need to go to the library. Which just goes to show how totally unbearable the situation is, since I have never once in my life decided to go to the library voluntarily.
I gather up all my stuff, shove it into my bag, throw my hair into a ponytail, and gloss my lips. Not that it matters. But lip gloss usually makes me feel better.
“I’m going to the library,” I say to the room.
“See ya,” Crissa says, holding up her hand in a half wave. Tia and Rachel don’t even respond.
I head down the hallway toward the library. My eyes are still a little watery, and I reach up and angrily wipe them with the back of my hand. Whatever. Scarlett Northon does not roll over for a bunch of mean girls! Maybe this is karma for never trying to be friends with the dorky girls at my old school. But at least at my old school, even though I wasn’t particularly nice to the girls who weren’t in my crowd, they had friends. They had girls who they could talk to. All I want is to find one Fendi-wearing misfit here. Although I guess that isn’t going to happen, since I haven’t seen even one trace of Fendi since I’ve gotten here. I haven’t even seen any Prada.
I contemplate this as I hit the bottom stair, feeling sorry for myself. And then I hear a noise coming from under the stairs. It sounds kind of like a cross between a cry and a strangled moan, with a little bit of a sniffle thrown in. Hmm. Sounds like someone is crying and trying not to let anyone know. I used to do the same thing when I’d go to sleepovers and get homesick. Until one time in the fourth grade when Ella Markson’s older sister caught me crying and woke up her mom, and my dad had to come and get me. And on the way home we decided that maybe it would be better if I didn’t go to any more sleepovers for a while. But it was nice. My dad said it like we’d come up with the idea together, instead of just pointing out that I was obviously too scared to spend the night out by myself.
I creep around and under the stairs, and I see Amber sitting there, her uniform skirt sprawled out around her in a puddle.
“Amber?” I say. She buries her face back in her knees and doesn’t move.
“I can see you,” I say, sighing and crawling under the staircase with her. A film of dirt attaches itself to my jeans. Eww.
“What is it?” she asks, like I’m the one who’s crying. Her face is still buried in her knees, and all I can see is a cloud of blond hair.
“Why are you crying?” I ask. “I mean, I’ve definitely felt like crying too, since I’ve been here, but you’re not new.”
Amber says something that sounds like “I’m hahschnick.”
“You wa
nt a hot dog?” I try.
“No, I’m hoshnick.”
“You need a hockey stick?”
“No!” she says, finally pulling her face up. Her cheeks are all smudged from her tears. “I’m homesick!”
“Oooh,” I say, finally getting it. “You’re homesick.” That makes much more sense than her wanting a hockey stick. Although in this place, you never know.
“Yes,” Amber says. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Eww. I reach into my bag, pull out a tissue, and hand it to her. She takes it and wipes her nose properly this time. “Are you?”
“Not really,” I say. I miss my mom, of course. My dad, I could probably do without. But honestly I’m more worried about people here accepting me, and less about missing home. There’s really nothing there for me to go back to. “I’m more concerned with people here liking me.” It’s out of my mouth before I realize this probably makes me sound totally shallow. “I mean … Wow, does that make me shallow?”
“No,” she says. “It makes you lucky.” Overhead, we can hear the footsteps of students walking up and down the steps. She sniffs again. “I just miss my parents, you know? And my sister.”
“Even after being here for so many years?”
“Yeah,” she says. “It happens to me every year for the first few days. I get totally homesick.” Sniff. “It’s just hard with my dad being away.”
“Where’s your dad?”
“He’s in the military, and he’s stationed overseas.” She’s twisting her hands nervously in her lap. “I don’t get to see him that much.”
“That sucks.” I can’t really relate. Having my dad shipped overseas sounds fine to me. We sit there for a second, which is kind of awkward. I mean, I don’t even know this girl, and she’s crying in front of me. I’m not exactly sure what to say, so I decide to try my hand at speaking Brookline-ese. Or, you know, whatever it would be called if Brookline had their own language. I hold up my science book. “Want to go to the library and study?”
She looks surprised. “You’re studying now?”