Versus me, with my short brown hair, my teeny size, and my flat chest. I crossed my arms in front of the Cheeto-colored tee, which suddenly seemed to be screaming GIRLS’ DEPARTMENT, even if it didn’t have pandas or ballerinas or ice cream cones.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” Griffin was saying. He seemed embarrassed. “Could I please borrow a pen? I forgot one.”
“Oh, no problem.” I quickly unzipped my backpack. On the bottom, underneath the binders and folders we’d bought yesterday, was my small sketchbook, and my pen, colored pencil, and marker collection. “Take any one you want.”
He peered into my backpack and took out a green gel pen. “Wow, you sure have a lot of writing utensils.”
“What?”
“Pens. Pencils. Markers. Why do you have so many?”
Because I spend a lot of time in waiting rooms. “I like to draw. Well, not really draw. Doodle.”
“Yeah? Can I see?”
It was kind of a weird question to ask someone, but he seemed interested. I mean, not like he asked it to be nice—more like he was actually curious. So I took out my sketchbook and flipped through some pages, showing him zentangles, random swirly shapes, then some dragon-ish creatures I’d invented.
“Those are awesome,” Griffin said, lingering over the dragon-ish creatures. “Really.”
I blushed. “Thanks.”
He shook his head. “You should see how I doodle. I’m terrible.”
I laughed. “How can you be terrible at doodling?”
“I just am. All I do is cubes. I’m the world’s most boring doodler.”
“That’s silly. I bet if you got yourself some really good pens—”
“Hey, bro, could you please move your desk like two inches?” Some kid was shouting and jabbing my shoulder. It took me a second to realize he meant me; I was “bro.”
Why was I “bro”?
Oh. Because of my short hair. And also my flat chest and orange tee.
I felt my entire body break into a sweat. I couldn’t answer this kid. Or move, either.
“What’s the matter, you deaf?” the boy demanded. He raked his long dark hair out of his eyes in a way you do only if you’re in love with yourself.
“Are you talking to Norah?” Griffin asked the kid loudly. “Just chill, okay?”
Now a very tall blond girl with a pointy nose and too much mascara walked over and pursed her lips at the boy. “Rowan, you’re such an idiot. That’s a girl you were just talking to. You should apologize.”
She smiled at Griffin, a smile I didn’t like. And she didn’t even look at me, even though I was the one she was supposedly sticking up for.
“Sorry,” Rowan muttered. You could tell he wasn’t even embarrassed by his mistake.
“It’s fine,” I muttered back.
The tall blond girl didn’t take her eyes off Griffin. “Hey, I don’t know you. I’m Thea.”
Griffin extended his hand again. “Griffin Kirkley,” he said, smiling.
Thea giggled in a way that reminded me of the coin return in the hospital vending machines. Immediately I hated her, as well as Rowan. And I almost hated Griffin, too—except right at that moment he dropped his hand from Thea’s grip. “This is Norah. She’s new here too.”
Thea glanced at me. “Hey, Norah,” she said in an airy voice.
“Hi.” I pretended to search my backpack for something. There was no reason to think Thea knew me from before. But even so, I didn’t want her attention, and I was relieved when she finally stopped chatting with Griffin and took a seat on the other side of the classroom.
The class began with Ms. Perillo handing out textbooks, talking about her expectations, her test policy, her homework policy. (Before middle school, did teachers have “policies”? I couldn’t remember any.) Then she wrote some problems on the whiteboard. As I copied them into my green binder, I had to admit that this was the right class for me; in fact, they were starting with stuff I’d covered with Ayesha months ago.
But kid-wise? I wasn’t sure. Everyone seemed rude or not especially friendly. Griffin was nice, but he wouldn’t stay nice, probably, not once the other kids started to notice him. There was no point assuming I’d made a friend, I told myself; I seemed like such a baby compared to everyone else—and obviously he’d realize that soon enough, if he hadn’t already.
So for the whole class period I didn’t talk to him, or even look at him.
Well, except for when he slipped me a piece of paper on which he’d drawn a stack of cubes.
SEE? he’d written underneath. WORLD’S MOST BORING DOODLER.
DOODLES
Norah, what happened to you?” Harper cried. “Why weren’t you in math?”
Just before the start of second period English, I was back on the second floor, meeting up with Harper outside the classroom. “I got switched to eighth grade,” I said. “But just for math and science.”
When she pushed her long light brown hair out of her eyes, I could see they were worried. “You did? How come?” she asked.
“Ayesha got me too far ahead, I guess. But it’s okay,” I added quickly.
“You sure? Wouldn’t you rather be with us? I bet if your parents complained—”
“No, no, I really like the teacher.” I felt my face tingle. “And anyway, I’ll be with you guys for everything else, right?”
“You’d better be.” Harper searched the classroom as we stepped inside. “All right, so where should we sit?”
Right away I spotted two empty seats next to Silas. Harper knew he was my good friend, so it surprised me that she was even asking the question. “With Silas, of course,” I told Harper.
“Um, maybe not.”
I looked at her. “How come?”
Harper rolled her eyes. “I think he’s saving those seats. One of them, anyway.”
“He is? Who
