The girl finally looks up. “Who is they?”
A heavyset woman hurries out of an office in the back. “So sorry, honey,” she says. “I had to run back here for just a second.” She looks at the bald girl with what seems like a worried expression, then back at Grace. “Was Erin helping you?”
“Um, sort of?”
“The way you talk is called ‘upspeak,’?” the girl named Erin says. “It sounds like you’re asking a question even when you’re not.”
“Erin.” The woman sighs. “Will you please focus on your task and let me help this young lady?”
“I was trying to be friendly,” Erin says softly. She takes a deep breath and moves her hands together as if she’s trying to rub lotion into them.
“Okay, Erin,” the woman says. “Calm down.”
“Never in the history of the world has telling someone to calm down actually helped them calm down,” Erin says.
“How can I help you, dear?” the woman says to Grace, with a look in her eyes that says they’re in on something together, which Grace suspects is supposed to be a mutual exasperation with Erin. But what Grace thinks is that Erin seems stressed out, so shouldn’t this woman be trying to help her? If you work at a school, isn’t it your job to help kids?
“My name’s Grace Salter. I just moved here. I’m supposed to pick up my schedule.”
“Of course,” the woman says with far more friendliness in her voice than when she spoke to Erin. “Welcome to Prescott! I’m Mrs. Poole. I run the office here. How do you like Prescott so far?”
“It’s okay, I guess?”
“We are exactly eighty-one point seven miles from the nearest beach,” Erin says. “Which is not okay.”
Mrs. Poole ignores Erin. She flips through a file on the desk and pulls out a paper. “Here we go. Grace Salter’s class schedule. Homeroom is American Literature with Mr. Baxter.”
“Mr. Baxter is the football coach and only assigns books by dead straight white men,” says Erin.
“Erin, that’s enough!” says Mrs. Poole with a huff, then turns to Grace with a pitiful face. “She’s going to be here every first period for the entire semester.”
“I can hear you,” Erin says.
“You know what?” Mrs. Poole says. “The bell is about to ring. Erin, will you show Grace to her first class? We don’t want her to be late on her first day.”
Erin stands up, and even though she’s wearing an oversize flannel over a baggy white T-shirt and ill-fitting jeans, Grace can tell she has a model’s body, and she wonders why she’s trying so hard to hide it. Grace thinks if she had a body like that, she’d want everyone to know it.
“Let’s go,” Erin says, and walks out the door without checking to see if Grace is coming with her.
Grace wants to ask Erin why Mrs. Poole thought it was okay to be so mean to her, why she seemed to think it wouldn’t hurt, but what Grace says instead is “Have you lived here long?” to the back of Erin’s head.
“More than two years,” she says.
“Where’d you live before?”
“Seattle.”
“Oh, was it cool there? I heard it’s cool.”
“You have an accent.”
“I’m from Kentucky.”
“Here’s Mr. Baxter’s classroom.” Erin stops in front of an open door, her eyes tilted toward the ground. Grace realizes that except for that first glance up from the computer when she first entered the office, Erin hasn’t looked her in the eyes once.
“Thanks.”
Erin’s eyes dart across the floor. After a long pause, she finally says, “You’re welcome.” Then she walks away.
Grace enters the noisy classroom and finds a seat in the back. She keeps her eyes on the floor and can’t tell if anyone’s looking at her. She doesn’t know which would be worse—if they were looking, or if no one noticed her at all. The bell rings. The teacher is nowhere in sight.
“I heard Lucy Moynihan had a nervous breakdown after she left school,” a dark-haired girl says next to Grace. “She just, like, lost it. She’s in a mental institution in Idaho or something.”
“That’s not true,” the girl’s blond friend says. “Her family just moved to Portland because they were embarrassed and couldn’t deal.”
“Serves her right,” the other girl says. “For all the trouble she caused. Like, couldn’t she think of a better way to get attention?”
The two girls laugh. Grace wants them to stop. She doesn’t know Lucy, doesn’t know the whole story, but she knows in her heart that the girl who carved those words Grace found in her room was not just looking for attention.
But mixed in with her annoyance is also the hope that these girls are possible friend contenders. She can tell they’re not popular, but they’re also not the bottom rung. They’re like her, the kind of girls no one notices. So what if they gossip? Grace may have to look past things like that. She’s doesn’t have a ton of other options.
Grace closes her eyes. She tells herself, Say hello. She prays for strength. She opens her mouth, but just then a tall, thick, clean-cut man enters the room carrying a pile of tattered textbooks.
“Yo, Coach Baxter,” says a beefy dude in the front row.
“Aarons,” says the teacher. “You ready to win on Friday?”
“Hell yes!” Then a few other guys in football jerseys high-five and whoop.
“Here, McCoy,” he says to one of the football guys, dropping the pile of books on his desk. “Pass these out.”
“Yes, Coach.”
“All right,” Mr. Baxter says, rifling through a stack of papers on his desk. “Attendance. Attendance. Where’s my attendance sheet?”
The loudspeaker crackles. “Good morning, Prescott High School, and happy first day of school,” says a female voice. “This is Principal Slatterly.” Half the class moans. “I speak for the teachers and administration when I say we’re glad to see you and hope you are returning from your summers well rested and ready to learn.”
Her voice turns somber: “I want to emphasize that in addition to education, the mission of Prescott High is to instill in its students a respect for authority, discipline, and order. Without these things, your school, your community, society as a whole, would fall apart. We aim to nurture and grow constructive members of society, young men and women who want to contribute to, not disrupt and destroy, the spirit of the school community.” She clears her throat, and her voice turns chipper once again. “Our varsity football team is looking stronger than ever this year, and we’re looking forward to the pep rally Friday afternoon. Remember, students, only you can take charge of your own future. Go Spartans!”
Half the class cheers while the rest stare blankly out the window. The blond gossiping girl smiles at Grace. Grace worries that her smile back is crooked. The girl says, “Are you new?”
“Yeah. Hi. I’m Grace.”
“I’m Allison. Nice to meet you.”