Harrison squirmed in his chair. “Huh. That’s not a very nice story.”
“Oh, it’s not?” Aria said, her dark eyes flashing. “Which part don’t you like, Harrison? Spying on someone when they’re trying to run? Or getting punished for it?”
“What?”
“Oh, come on. I saw you staring at me yesterday in Afterschool!”
Harrison’s eyes rounded. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Don’t lie! Of course you were watching me. You totally wrecked my concentration. So all my times were off.” Aria raised her eyebrows at me. “Norah was there. I bet she saw you.”
“Actually, yeah,” I admitted. “I did notice you yesterday in the parking lot, Harrison.” Now he was blushing so hard I thought he might violate the No-Crying rule.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I won’t do it again.”
“You’d better not, at least not without asking me first,” Aria warned. “Or I’ll turn you into mashed potatoes. With gravy!”
Aria grinned at me. I could see she was just teasing Harrison. But it was cool how she was standing up for herself—jokey about everything except running.
For a second I found myself wishing I could be like Aria Maldonado—or maybe be Aria Maldonado. Chatty. Smiley. Athletic. Loud.
“How are we all doing?” Ms. Farrell was at our table, eyeing us. “Resolving conflicts in a peaceful manner befitting deities?”
Aria kept grinning. “Yeah, we are. This is so fun.”
“I’m glad you think so. It’s a warm-up for our big project.” Ms. Farrell winked and walked off.
We played the game for a few more minutes. Then Ms. Farrell wrote two words on the whiteboard:
SYMPATHY
EMPATHY
“Two nice Greek words,” Ms. Farrell said. “Along with ‘therapist’ and ‘therapy,’ by the way. The Greeks were all about feelings.” She pointed to the whiteboard with her blue marker. “So who can tell us what these words mean, and how they’re different from each other?”
Harper raised her hand. “Sympathy is when you feel sorry for someone. Empathy is when you feel what someone else is feeling. Like you’re putting yourself in their shoes.”
“Right.” Next to SYMPATHY, Ms. Farrell wrote FEELING FOR. Next to EMPATHY, she wrote FEELING WITH. “Which is harder—sympathy or empathy?”
“Sympathy,” Addison guessed. “Because you see why things are hard for someone else, but you can’t always help them.”
Ms. Farrell looked at me. “Norah? What do you think?”
I swallowed. “I wasn’t raising my hand.”
“Yes. But I thought you might have an insight to share.”
“Why?”
It sounded like back talk, but I didn’t care. She was putting me on the spot, making me talk about cancer. Not directly, but I could tell what she was doing. Like: Hey, guys, don’t feel sorry FOR me; try to feel WITH me. As if that was possible.
Everyone was staring at me now.
“Just answer,” Harper muttered. “Don’t do this.”
Fine. I took a breath. “I think empathy is harder because when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, sometimes you feel things you don’t want to. But I don’t think empathy is always possible, anyhow.”
“How come?” Ms. Farrell asked, tucking some loose hair behind her ears.
“Because sometimes the other person’s experience is so weird that you can’t put yourself in their shoes. I mean, you may think you can, but you really can’t.”
“I don’t agree,” Addison called out. “People aren’t stupid, Norah.”
“I’m not calling anyone stupid,” I said.
“Omigod, you so are! You’re saying people can’t understand some things, even if they want to. And to be honest, I think that’s a pretty stuck-up attitude.”
“That’s not what Norah said,” Harper protested. “She said that sometimes it’s hard to empathize. Sometimes.”
“All right, girls,” Ms. Farrell said calmly. “Let’s stay on topic here, please. So let me ask you: In the Couples Counseling game, which were you feeling for your characters—sympathy or empathy?”
“Sympathy,” Addison said. “Because when I was playing Hera, I felt sorry for her. Zeus was a terrible husband, but she couldn’t divorce him, right? So there was no way to help her.” Addison shook her braids.
“For me it was empathy,” Aria said. “Because I felt exactly the same as Artemis when she got spied on.” She raised her eyebrows at Harrison, who seemed to shrink.
Ms. Farrell nodded. “Okay, well, for this first project of the year, I’m asking you all to use your strongest empathic powers. You’re going to pick a mythic character—a god or goddess, a mortal affected by the gods, a creature, any character in any one of the myths—and put yourself in his or her shoes.”
“Did the gods wear shoes?” Harrison asked.
“I’m pretty sure they wore sandals,” Kylie said. “You know, with those tie-up laces.”
“Figurative shoes,” Ms. Farrell corrected herself. “And you’ll prepare a five-minute speech from that character’s point of view. Feel what the character is feeling; express his or her thoughts in the first person. Help us to understand your character’s behavior, even if it’s hard. Especially if it’s hard. And be creative. Wear costumes, use props. Yes, Malik?”
“Can we have special effects? Like if we pick Zeus, can we have a thunderbolt?”
“Malik, you’re not going to electrocute anyone, right?” Kylie asked, giggling.
Ms. Farrell held up a hand. “Guys, I want you to have fun with this project, and be theatrical—but the focus should be on your words. And I should tell you that the three best speeches from this class will be delivered to a special school assembly promoting empathy.”
“What if you’d rather not?” Cait asked in a small voice.
“No one will be forced onstage, Cait. But you do need to do your speech for this class, okay?”
“Okay,” Cait said, melting into her seat.
“What if you can’t pick anyone?” Addison asked.
“If you’re having trouble coming up with a character, I’ll try to help you find a good fit. Or you can ask our expert mythologist, Norah, if she has any suggestions.” Ms. Farrell smiled at me, but I didn’t smile back.
And then Stinkeye Number Three happened. I tried to ignore Addison, but she refused to look away.
The bell rang.
“Let me know
