Bending Over Backwards (2 page)

“I am pleased to introduce your sixth-grade student ambassadors,” Mr. Sabino called out. “These exemplary students were chosen by you to lead you. They are your link to the administration. If you have a problem or concern, talk to them. They will be easy to find, as only they wear the student ambassador green-star pin.”

Even from where I sat near the back, I could see the bright green enamel pins on their shirts.

My gaze traveled back to It Girl.

“She's totally pretty, right?” Shrimp whispered in my ear.

“Who?” I pretended I wasn't staring.

“Lyla Silviera. I see you looking at her. How do you think she gets her hair so shiny? I once read you should add egg whites to your shampoo.”

“Lyla,” I repeated the name. “What's she like?”

Shrimp gave her friend a sideways glance. “You want to answer that one, Sydney?”

Sydney shook her head. “Not so much.”

“I'm going to go with . . . popular,” Shrimp said. “Lyla is very popular.”

I knew it! I just knew it!

At that moment, the lights beamed on, and Mr.
Sabino instructed everyone to head to their first-period class. I glanced at the schedule crumpled in my lap. Social studies in room 108.

“Do you know where you're going? Of course you don't,” Shrimp answered before I could. She peered over my shoulder. “I don't really know either. New school for everyone. I'm going to room 314, but I can walk with you, if you want.”

Lyla and her friends had already stood and were squeezing their way down their row and into the aisle. This was my chance.

“No need. I'm good. I saw maps posted on lots of the walls,” I said quickly. “Thanks, though. And thanks for—” I stuck my tongue out, the Jolly Rancher now just a sliver.

Shrimp stood and stuck her tongue back at me. It was bright blue.

“Raspberry is my second favorite,” I remarked.

“I guessed that.” Shrimp headed towards the door. “Peace out, Girl Scout!”

“I'm not a Girl Scout.”

“Neither am I. It's just a saying I'm saying.” She giggled and disappeared into the hall.

Shrimp's nice but a bit strange,
I decided. I twirled around, searching for Lyla, who was definitely cooler.
She'd somehow made it across the auditorium and was leaving through the opposite door. I hurried after her.

Time to put the plan into action.

Time to meet the It Girl.

I skidded down the crowded halls, trying to keep Lyla in sight. Her black shirt blended in with the sea of students. As I dodged and weaved, I followed her impossibly shiny hair. Normally I would've been worried about finding my classroom on the first day at a new school. Now I only wanted to find Lyla.

A buzzer sounded, throwing everyone into panic. Clutching their schedules, kids darted right and left.

“That was the warning bell,” a teacher called from the doorway of his classroom. “It's the first day, so we understand. Come to me if you're lost.” He waved his arms as if signaling an airplane on a runway.

Was I lost? I glanced at the nearby room numbers . . . 165 and 166. I'd made it to the 100s wing, which was good. Ahead of me, Lyla turned a corner and disappeared.

The hallway began to empty quickly, and I sighed.
I'd have to find her later. Right now, I needed to find room 108.

Not knowing where else to go, I turned the same corner. To my surprise, room 108 magically appeared, completely out of numerical order.
Why do schools do this?
I wondered. How could we be expected to learn math or map skills or whatever if the numbers on the doors were totally random?

I stepped inside.
WHAT IS SOCIAL STUDIES
? was written in red block letters on the whiteboard. Kids wandered about, chatting and catching up on summer fun. Desks stood in a row, and huge maps covered one wall. The windows on the opposite wall were pushed open, letting in a faint early September breeze. I felt myself drawn to them.

Weird,
I thought as I headed towards a desk by the window. At school in Arizona, windows were always closed, so the air conditioning could pump. Without air conditioning, we'd melt in the desert heat. Out these windows, all I could see was green—bright green grass and dark green leaves. I never knew the world was so green.

“Oh, Lyla, I love those metallic shoes! Are they new?”

My head whipped around. Lyla? Lyla was in my first-period class!

Luckily, I hadn't sat yet. I left the window and headed towards her. She stood with two other girls near the back of the room. They all compared shoes. Ballet flats. My high-tops suddenly felt totally wrong.

Another buzzer sounded, and a woman with chin-length blond hair and a crisp white button-down shirt cleared her throat. She held what looked like the same red marker that had been used on the board. She was revving up to start class. I had to move fast.

“I saw your silver shoes in a magazine.” I pointed to Lyla's feet.

“Really?” Lyla glanced towards me. “Which one?”

I bit my lip. I'd totally made that up. “A back-to-school issue. One of the fashion magazines.”

“Metallic is so in,” the girl to Lyla's left said.

“Don't you think I knew that, Sasha?” Lyla said. “Diagonal stripes too.”

“And red,” her other friend added.

“Not dark red. Cherry red,” Lyla corrected.

“And denim shirts,” I put in. Eden and I had bought them last month. “Really faded ones.”

Lyla shook her head. “That was in last year.”

“Denim is always in,” I said. “I mean, what's not to like about jeans, right?” I gave her a big smile. My winner smile.

Lyla didn't smile back.

No biggie,
I thought.
Friendship takes time.

Then the teacher told everyone to find a desk. Lyla's two friends quickly sat on either side of her. A blond boy slumped into the seat in front of her. My choices were narrowing. I slid into the desk next to him, but I angled my body back towards Lyla.

Close enough,
I thought.

The teacher introduced herself as Mrs. Murphy. She read through the class list, and I could tell she'd been teaching for a long time. She managed to pronounce everyone's name pretty much correctly. My name is easy, but others sounded tricky. When she called Lyla's name, I smiled at Lyla.

Again, she didn't smile back.

“What is social studies?” Mrs. Murphy asked the class.

“History,” called out a boy near the front.

“Raised hands, please,” Mrs. Murphy corrected him. “Yes, but the history of what?”

Lyla raised her hand. “The history of our country.”

Mrs. Murphy pointed to a girl by the window. “The history of other places too,” she added.

“Yes,” Mrs. Murphy agreed, “and no. We will be studying places, both near and far, but social studies
is about people. We are going to be studying human behavior over time. We will start right now.”

“Don't we need a textbook or something?” the same boy who had called out called out again.

Mrs. Murphy mimed raising her hand, then said, “Not just yet. We'll start by studying the people around us. Everyone take out a pencil and a piece of paper.”

I flipped open my new purple binder neatly filled with lined paper. Unzipping the pouch in the front, I found lots of blue and black pens. A highlighter too, but no pencils. I chewed my lip, realizing they were in the new green binder tucked safely in my locker.

Every year since kindergarten I've made a big deal about organizing my school supplies. I love how everything looks so new and the erasers smell so clean. Last night I unwrapped everything Mom and I had bought and laid it on the kitchen table. I filled and labeled my three-ring binders. This year I decided to put all my sharpened pencils in one binder, my pens in another, and my markers in another. Usually my stuff is jumbled and I can never find anything.

New school, new system, I promised myself. I'd never had a system before.

New school and
no
pencil, I realized now. Some system.

I turned towards Lyla. “Hi, listen, do you have a pencil I can borrow?”

“You don't have one?” She gave me an incredulous stare.

“I know, right? Totally silly of me.” I laughed. Lyla's eyes widened as I let out a small hiccup.

“Sorry. Don't have one,” she said, turning away from me.

I stopped laughing. That was mean.

“For you.”

A pink pencil waited on my desk. I swiveled to see who'd given it to me.

“I heard you didn't have one.” The girl to my left grinned.

“Wow, thanks.” I rolled the pencil on my palm, then squinted at the gold lettering.
WRITE ON BLEEKER
! “Bleeker? Is this a regift?”

“Regift?” Her dark blue eyes looked confused.

“You know, when someone gives you a gift that they got from someone else. My aunt Kelly used to have a regift party the week after Christmas. It was hysterical. You bring the gift you don't like and rewrap it. Everyone picks one. You just have to hope that the person who picks your gift isn't the one who gave you the ugly thing in the first place. That's what happened to my cousin,” I
explained. I held up the pink pencil. “Who's Bleeker? A bank? A bookstore?”

“It's me.”

“Oh, sorry.” I felt my cheeks go pink. “Thanks, Bleeker.”

“Roseann. My name's Roseann Bleeker. Mom had personalized pencils made. There's a lot of us, so she only put our last name on them so we could share.”

“So, not-so-personal personalization,” I teased. “I'm Molly Larsen.”

Her face brightened with recognition. “You're new.”

“How'd you know?” Could every kid read the newness on me? Was it that obvious? I thought I was doing a good job fitting in.

“You're on the list.” She tapped her pink polo shirt, and I noticed her green enamel star pin. “We get a list of the new kids.”

Mrs. Murphy started talking about a get-to-know-you exercise.

I recognized her matching pink headband. Roseann was the student-ambassador girl on stage.

“Everyone stand,” Mrs. Murphy instructed. Chairs squeaked. “I'm timing you. Exactly one minute. Pick a partner. Go!”

At first, no one moved. Eyes scanned possible
partners. Then, as if an on switch were suddenly flicked, everyone jumped into action, worming between desks to reach their targets. I stayed frozen.

I know no one,
I thought, my heart thudding. No, wait, I did. Lyla!

I whirled around and stepped in front of her. This was perfect.

“Hi! I'm Molly!” I said as cheerfully as I could.

“Hey,” Lyla said, then turned to the girl to her right. I was left staring at the back of her shirt. Total snub!

Lyla quickly paired up with that girl. The other girl in their trio linked arms with a different girl. I stood nervously in their circle. Lyla acted as if I wasn't even there. I could do the math. I was the odd girl out.

My palms sweated, and I squeezed the pink pencil. Behind me, I heard Roseann's name being called. A swarm of girls and boys surrounded her. Her whispery voice rose above their voices.

Now what? The seconds ticked away. All around me, kids paired up. The plan wasn't supposed to work this way. I should've talked to Lyla by now. I should've, at this moment, been securing an invite to her lunch table. I squeezed the pencil harder. Mrs. Murphy would put me with some other leftover kid. The class would label me as the girl no one wanted.

The pencil gave a
crack
, and I jumped. I stared at the two pieces in my hand.

I gulped. The pencil wasn't even mine.

“Wow! You're strong.” Roseann raised her eyebrows at me. She'd stepped out of the crowd and moved to my side.

“I am so sorry—” I began.

“No biggie. I've got tons. My mom had to order one hundred to get a good price.”

“I didn't mean to—”

“Do you want to be my partner?” Roseann cut me off.

I blinked, confused. All those kids had come over to be Roseann's partner. What had happened?

“Don't you have . . . ? I mean, everyone came—”

She cut me off again. “You look like you could use a partner.” She smiled. Not a pity-the-lost-puppy smile. A you're-okay smile.

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

Other kids grinned at us as we pulled our desks close together. No one seemed upset with Roseann. Everyone liked her!

And so did I.

Roseann lent me another Bleeker pencil. For the next twenty minutes, we filled out a worksheet together.
It turned out we both like the color pink. Our favorite snack is brownies. Extra chewy, not cakelike. None of our other answers matched, but that was okay.

Next we had to walk around the class and introduce our partner to other groups. “Should we go over there?” I asked Roseann, nodding towards Lyla. Maybe if Roseann was by my side, I'd have a good way to start. “Sure,” Roseann agreed. Then four other groups hurried over to us. I watched how Roseann greeted each kid as if he or she was the coolest kid in the room. Movie-star treatment, my mother calls it. I glanced at Lyla and remembered how
she'd
treated me.

How could I have forgotten the It Girl trap? Eden and I had talked about it a zillion times. Some mean girls acted like It Girls. Other girls are fooled into thinking the mean girl is the It Girl. Not so. Her popularity comes from kids fearing her, not liking her. Huge, huge difference. An It Girl is truly, totally, majorly liked.

I'd had it all wrong.

Lyla wasn't the It Girl at this school.

Roseann was.

“Molly. Molly? Are you done?”

“What?” I stared down at the homemade pizza on
my plate. My mind was still on Roseann. The rest of the day had gone by in a blur. I'd barely seen her again. “Yeah, sure.”

My mom tilted her head. “All good? You didn't eat much.”

“The new school is a lot to think about, that's all,” I explained. I'd already told Mom all about my classes and teachers. Or at least what I remembered. The first day was only a half day, and we mostly went over class rules and got textbooks.

“I'll finish that.” My brother, Alex, reached across the wooden table and snatched the pizza off my plate.

“Hey, that's not your number.” I swatted his big hand. Alex is always grabbing my food. That's what happens when your older brother eats fast and you eat slowly.

“I ate your number once before, and I'll eat it again!” His mouth was filled with mozzarella cheese and sauce. I watched him gobble the rest of my number six pizza.

Every year on the first day of school, Mom makes personal pizzas for dinner. She writes our new grade in vegetables or pepperoni slices. This year I had a six made from green peppers. Alex had a twelve made from onions. At the beginning of the meal, we take a big bite into our grade-number pizza, and Mom snaps a picture. When I was in kindergarten and first grade,
I had sauce all over my face in the photo! Mom loves those silly photos. I thought we'd stop with the pizzas when Dad moved out three years ago, but Mom kept going.

“Traditions are traditions because they don't change,” Mom had said. Tonight in our new house across the country, she'd made the pizzas again.

But things had changed. A lot.

“I hear you, Molls.” Mom rubbed the sides of her head with her fingertips. She was still in her navy work dress, although she'd kicked off her heels as soon as she'd come home. The layers of her reddish-brown hair fell over her tired eyes. “The new job is a lot to think about too.”

“But you like it, right?” I asked. We'd moved here for her job. She'd been promised a lot more money and a lot more power to be in charge of advertising for a popular brand of paper towels. Mom had pretended that the move was all about business, but I knew better. I'd overheard her with Aunt Kelly on the phone. She wanted a fresh start. Dad had married Carmen last year, and Mom said she needed “breathing room.”

Why did she need eight big states of breathing room? That was what I didn't get. Eight was the number of states between me and Eden. I'd counted.

“I do like it,” Mom said. “But it takes time to get used to a new place and new people. And I'm not used to being the boss.”

“I'd like to tell people what to do,” I said.