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  “Do you think she’ll finish before lunch?” asked Adair, taking off her denim jacket.

  “Not at this rate,” I moaned. I dug out my leather-bound sketchbook from my backpack. I unzipped it, found a fresh page, and started drawing Fawn’s profile.

  Out of the corner of my eye I watched Adair turn the sleeve of her jacket inside out. She smoothed it out on her lap, then popped the cap off a black permanent marker.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Writing my locker combo on the inside of my sleeve,” she said, the cap now between her teeth. “It takes me forever to learn it. This way, I don’t have to ever worry about forgetting it.”

  “Do you think that’s such a good idea?”

  “Nobody can see it here. Plus, it’s better than looking like a dork digging out my stupid locker card.”

  She had a point.

  “My lips are so dry, they’re about to fall off,” said Fawn. “Does anybody have any lip balm?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Hold still. I am doing your nose.”

  “Fix the awful dent on the side, please.”

  “What do I look like, Photoshop? Besides, it’s cute. It makes you you.”

  “I have plenty of me. I want killer beauty.”

  I shook my head. Fawn didn’t need my help. She was beautiful. Doelike eyes. Pale freckle-free, flawless skin. Delicate nose (with a barely noticeable dimple, not some hideous deformity, as she kept insisting). How could she not see it?

  “I might have some lip balm,” said Adair, sliding her arms into her jacket. She reached down for her purse.

  “It’s not a Rebel kind, is it?” asked Fawn.

  “No one in their right mind would buy that goo.”

  I grunted. “Oh yeah? My aunt gave me a whole set of Rebel lip gloss for Christmas last year.”

  “Ew,” Fawn and Adair said together.

  “Did you try all of the flavors?”

  “I had to. She kept asking me about them. Movie Madness was okay. It’s a weird, rusty shade of brown, but it tastes good—like caramel corn.”

  “Cadence says there’s one that tastes like a corn dog,” said Fawn.

  “That’s Baseball Fever,” I said, using the side of the sharpened pencil to shade Fawn’s nose. “The flavor isn’t bad, but you look like you have mustard on your lips.”

  They squealed.

  “That’s not the worst one.”

  “What could be more horrible than mustard lips?” giggled Fawn.

  “Glow-in-the-dark lips,” I shot back. “We’re talking neon yellow here. It’s called Firefly. It tastes like onions.”

  “Ick to the hundredth power.” Adair zipped the top of her purse. “Sorry, Fawn. I must have left it in my PE locker.”

  Fawn let out a groan. To get the lip balm, she’d have to get past the office in the locker room shared by Mrs. Notting and Miss Furdy, our PE teachers. They were strict. Not normal strict. Crazy strict. Whenever you made the slightest mistake, Mrs. Notting would put a check mark next to your name on her enormous aluminum clipboard. To the PE teachers, your worth as a human being was determined by your athletic ability. If you couldn’t (or wouldn’t) stop a soccer ball with your face, you were swiping perfectly good oxygen from those who could (or would). At my other schools I played basketball and usually got As in PE, but because I wasn’t on a Big Mess sports team, I didn’t count. It didn’t matter that I started at Big Mess after basketball season ended.

  Dr. Adams was wrapping up her rah-rah speech. Finally! We clapped for her as she left the gym, wondering if we would ever see her the rest of the semester. Principals spend a lot of time in meetings. Or so they tell you. Personally, I think they ditch us to go eat hot wings with the other middle-school principals at Grillin’ Gil’s BBQ Barn on Route 4. I know that’s what I’d do.

  “Don’t forget the plan,” whispered Adair.

  Step one: We were to text one another during the break after first period to verify we all had the same lunch. Eating together was nonnegotiable. When you’re a Nobody, it’s all you’ve got. Step two: We were to meet in the hall outside the cafeteria as soon as possible after third period (or fourth, depending on which lunch we had), so we could proceed to step three: claiming our lunch table. Choosing a table was critical because whatever you got on that first day of school, you’d be stuck with for the rest of the year. It was a delicate process. You didn’t want to be within Tater-Tots-tossing range of the Somebodies, but you also didn’t want to be in the boonies where you’d have to humor Mr. Quigley, our lunchroom monitor. He had a foldout wallet with 187 pictures of his tuxedo cat, Clawed Monet.

  “What if we don’t have any classes together?” gulped Fawn. “What if we don’t even have lunch together?”

  “We can’t think that way,” I said, closing my sketchbook. “Positive thoughts, everybody.”

  “Positive thoughts,” affirmed my two best friends.

  What else could we do? We were three Nobodies treading water in the vast, stormy ocean of middle school. The best we could do was hold on to one another, kick like mad, and pray for a miracle. If the sharks got us, well, they got us.

  Wearing a prune-colored polyester pantsuit and matching low-heeled pumps, Mrs. Gisborne clomped across the gym floor. Her chubby hands reached to turn on the microphone.

  In a voice thinner than a tulip petal, Fawn said, “Here we go.”

  Three

  “Waffles is crooked again,” said Adair.

  Nobody knew for sure why Mrs. Gisborne wore a poofy wiglet on top of her head. She had plenty of hair. Her wiglet looked like something you’d pull out of your shower drain. People were forever gossiping about it. Some kids said it was to cover a stress-related, eighth-grader-induced bald spot. Dewey Parnell said she was using it to smuggle sticky notes and other office supplies home. But I doubted that. Mrs. Gisborne was too nice for that. We named it Waffles. The wiglet, I mean. Adair once said the big tuft of hair reminded her of her grandma’s dog, Waffles, and it stuck. Today Waffles was attached to Mrs. Gisborne’s scalp with three pastel pink butterfly hair clips. Each butterfly had two long, bouncy, metal antennae.

  “Once you receive your schedule, you must immediately exit the gym and report to your first-period class,” said Mrs. Gisborne, her butterfly antennae waving at us. “No dilly-dallying. No waiting for your friends. No stopping at your locker.”

  It looked like Fawn wasn’t going to be able to get Adair’s lip balm, after all.

  While another counselor, Mr. Rottle, stood nearby to hand out the schedule cards, Mrs. Gisborne began reading the names from her alphabetized list. “Abbott, James. Ackerman, Shaelynn. Adler, Kendra . . .”

  I felt a bonk on the back of my head. Despite Adair’s advice, I had to swing around. At the top of the bleachers Todd and Parker were snickering. A grinning Breck made his eyebrows dance. I pulled my hood over my left shoulder, fished out the Whopper trapped inside, and popped the malt ball into my mouth.

  Take that, boys!

  Soon Mrs. Gisborne called, “Clarke, Adair.”

  Adair squished past us to reach the aisle. “Stay strong. Text you soon.”

  Fawn, being an R, was the next to go. When her name was called, she gave me a weak smile, tucked her magenta streak behind her ear, and got up. Something fell to the floor. I reached down. It was Fawn’s locker assignment card. I called out to her, but she was already halfway down the steps. I tucked the card inside my backpack to give to her later.

  On her way out Dijon did a ballerina twirl to a hearty round of applause. I threw my hoodie over my head and tried not to hurl my oatmeal. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Gisborne hit the Ss.

  “Sheppard, Liezelotta.”

  “Liezelotta?” screamed Venice, poking Truffle next to her. “No wonder she goes by Liezel.”

  Truffle shouted, “Liezelotta has gotta lotta name!”

  The bleachers erupted in laughter. I didn’t see what was so funny. But with Dijon and Évian now gone, apparently it was
left to Venice and Truffle to rip into the Nobodies.

  I felt a breeze and glanced up to see my new locker partner trotting down the steps. Knowing it was almost my turn, I stood up, which is how I got a clear view of a gray leather, knee-high boot shooting out into the middle of the aisle. Suddenly Liezel Sheppard was airborne. Her backpack sailed left. Her purse veered right. And Liezel soared straight—for about two seconds. Then gravity won.

  Boom!

  The crash shook the gym. It was followed by a chorus of “Ooohs!”

  Sprawled facedown on the hardwood, Liezel’s right arm was flung out to the side, her left arm was bent under her body, and her legs—oh, her legs—were in an awkward wishbone position.

  Miss Aquino, a teacher’s aide, and Vice Principal Falkner rushed to Liezel’s side.

  Venice and Truffle were howling.

  Go ahead and laugh, girls, ’cause you’re about to get in some serious trouble. Have fun with Mrs. Pescatori in the detention room.

  Mrs. Pescatori had been a detention lady with the Oak Harbor school district since 1967. Anybody sent to the Big Mess detention room in the basement was forced to knit booties for her bulldogs, Winston Churchill and General MacArthur. If you didn’t know how to knit, you learned. Fast.

  I folded my arms and waited for the vice principal or one of the counselors to walk over and march the girls down to the office for their punishment. But that wasn’t what happened.

  What did happen?

  “Sherman, Kayla. Sherman, Richard. Sherrill, Thomas.”

  That’s right—nothing.

  Not. One. Thing.

  Mrs. Gisborne’s butterflies were boinging again, and Mr. Rottle was straightening his stack of schedule cards. The girls in the Royal Court were still laughing. Could it be that everybody, including the handful of adults in the gym, thought Liezel’s fall was an accident? I couldn’t be the only person to know the truth, could I? Other kids had to have seen it too. I glanced around quickly, but I was the only one standing up. Nobody was going to say anything. Nobody was going to defy the Royal Court. I should have known. It’s how things were done at Big Mess. It was how they would always be done. And honestly? It made me mad.

  I raced down the stairs and knelt by a red-faced Liezel. Pale green eyes with specks of gold were fighting back tears. Liezel was trying to wriggle out of Miss Aquino’s grasp, desperate to put the disaster behind her.

  “Does this hurt?” said Miss Aquino, gently probing Liezel’s elbow.

  “No,” she croaked. “I’m all right. Really, Miss A.”

  “If it starts to hurt—”

  “I’ll go to the nurse’s office right away, I promise,” said Liezel, scrambling for her books. “Coco, could you . . .?”

  “I’ll get your purse.” I went for the light pink leather hobo bag lying a few feet away. Dropping a silver barrette, a pen, and a tube of clear lip gloss into the purse, I handed it back to her.

  “Thanks,” she said, wiping away a tear before it could slip down her cheek.

  “I saw what happened,” I said softly.

  Glassy, pale green eyes met mine. Liezel lifted her hand, but she was too late to stop a second tear from falling. My heart hurt for her. She didn’t deserve what Venice had done to her. She didn’t deserve that kind of embarrassment. Nobody did.

  “Sherwood, Coco.” Mrs. Gisborne accidentally mispronounced my name as “Caw-coe.” If anybody laughed, I didn’t hear it. Was that a drizzle of silver glitter I felt on my forehead? It was good to know I still had a bit of magic left.

  There was a clear CD jewel case near my foot. I picked it up. “Is this yours too? There’s a crack in the corner, but I think the disc is okay.”

  “I don’t want to lose that,” said Liezel. “It’s my band.”

  I read the handwritten label on the disc: Avalanche. I’d never heard of it. “This is your favorite band?”

  “No, it’s my band. I play guitar in a rock group.”

  “Really?” I could see pixielike Liezel playing in a chamber music quartet, but a rock band?

  “It’s my cousin’s band, actually. He goes to Oak Harbor High.”

  “Could I listen to it?”

  “Sure. Just leave it in our locker when you’re done.”

  “Hey, Weasel and Cuckoo, hurry up, will you?” called Truffle. “You’re holding everybody up.”

  “Weasel and Cuckoo,” cried Venice. “That sounds like a good title for a children’s book. Weasel and Cuckoo Fall on Their Butts!” She let loose with her ear-splitting cackle.

  I nudged my locker mate. “All she needs is a broom and a good tailwind, if you know what I mean.”

  Liezel let herself smile.

  Once we were safely out of the gym, we stopped in the courtyard to look over our schedules. “What’s Lisp?” I asked Liezel. “I have it first period. Is that a speech class?”

  “Lisp?” Frowning, she took the card I held out. “Oh, LSP. It stands for ‘leadership.’ You’re in Mr. Tanori’s leadership class.”

  No!

  Her Fabulousness and the Royal Court were in that class. Like I said, Big Mess was their kingdom. I did my best to stay out of their way, which is why I had not signed up for leadership class, not even as an alternate.

  “How could this have happened?” I blew air out of my cheeks.

  “I don’t know, but if I were you, I’d be more worried about these next three classes.”

  I peered over her shoulder. “Why?”

  “They’re all PE.”

  Four

  I was drawing.

  Sitting on our blue sofa, my knees up to support my sketchbook, I began drawing what I remembered most about her: pale green eyes with flecks of gold. There is no sound quite like a newly sharpened pencil on paper. First, the wissss of clean lines stroking from the razor sharp point. Then the rapid woos-woos of the angle as you fill and shade, lighter in some places, darker in others. Wherever you want, however you want. Where once there was nothing, now there is everything. Emotion, life, beauty, pain, hope—you.

  Poof!

  Not that there is really anything magical about it. It is work. Every stroke is hard work.

  As I sketched, the crisp scent of melting cheddar cheese tickled my nose. On the first day of school we always ate toasted cheese sandwiches with sliced tomatoes for dinner. I couldn’t say exactly why or how the tradition started, but I knew when. It was the first day of second grade. The third day of September. Three months to the day after my mother left.

  Left.

  It makes it sound like she went to the grocery store and will be back any minute. Whenever Aunt Iona says it, her face gets all distorted. She has this way of making “left” sound like “murder.” She does it without realizing it. My aunt is a family counselor, so she is very big on expressing your innermost feelings. She thinks if she doesn’t constantly remind me that what happened was not my fault, I will be permanently damaged. Aunt Iona can relax. I know nothing was—is—my fault. I know my mother loved—loves—me. It’s just she is a restless soul. She can’t help it. My mom is a famous travel writer. She gets to fly all over the world and stay in a different hotel every night. It’s a glamorous life. How many kids do you know who get Egyptian lotus flower perfume or an aboriginal handmade didgeridoo from Australia for their birthday? Okay, the perfume gave me a rash and the didgeridoo arrived broken, but still . . .

  True, it would be nice if my mother stayed in one place for more than a weekend, and it would be even nicer if that place was Oak Harbor, but I am not holding my breath. It’s not like I never talk to or see my mother. I get a text from her every couple of months, and we talk, maybe, once every six months, depending on where she is and what she’s doing. I wish we talked more. I wish when we did talk, it was about stuff that mattered, instead of the weather or school. It’s hard, wanting to be with a person more than they want to be with you. Especially when that person is your mom. But you can’t force somebody to be who you want them to be. The magic only works on
you, and even then, there’s only so much it can do.

  Aunt Iona said in therapeutic terms I was in denial about my mother, so, of course, I giggled and said, “I deny that I’m in denial.” I tended to laugh off a lot of my aunt’s counseling stuff, particularly the things that are true.

  My life is divided into two parts. The one Before Mom and the one After Mom. I was starting to like AM the more I lived it. After Mom was when I first started drawing—faces, mostly. But other things too, like animals and angels. Sketching made me feel like there was a purpose for being. I could sit on the playground at recess and draw and forget, for a while, that nearly every other minute of my life was spent wishing, wishing, wishing my mom would come home. While I drew, I’d steal glances at the other kids on the playground, hoping someone would be brave enough to come over and talk to me. It rarely happened, and when it did, it never led to anything important. Like friendship.

  “Who’s that?” My dad was hovering over my left shoulder.

  “Liezel Sheppard. She’s my locker partner.”

  “Nice eyes. I hope she’s better than the girl you had last spring.”

  He meant Stockholm Ingebrittson, one of Dijon’s fringe Somebodies. Stockholm had not appreciated getting assigned a locker mate three-quarters of the way through the school year. Stock also believed anything that was yours was hers—your food, your pens, your books, and especially, your money. It took me a while to figure out I was sharing a locker with a shoplifter, or as I liked to refer to her, Stocklifter.

  “A billion times better,” I said. “Liezel plays in a rock band.”

  “A musician, huh?” He headed back into the kitchen. “How are your classes?”

  “Uh . . . good. Mrs. Gisborne is making a few minor adjustments.”

  “How’s Waffles?

  “Crooked.”

  He poked his head out of the kitchen. “Everything’s okay, though, with your classes?”

  “Yeah,” I lied, letting the couch cushions consume me. I didn’t want to relive the horror. After I’d picked up my schedule from Mrs. Gisborne, my first day of eighth grade had gone from irritating to excruciating.