Trading Faces (5 page)

Great. My first attempt at conversation with someone who looked remotely cool, and I had to get her in trouble. Now she'd probably never speak to me again, and—

The girl smoothed her hair with her hand. And a note dropped onto my desk.

Don't let Mrs. Bad Breath get to you. My sister had her and said she's evil. Destroy this. —S

Mrs. Bad Breath. Heh. I smiled. If she really wanted nothing to do with me, she wouldn't have passed me a note, right? That was promising. I ripped the note up into teeny pieces. And I got ready to write her back. What should I say that would be cool, but not trying too hard?

Bad Breath! Ha! That's funny!

No, that was stupid.

I'm new and don't know anyone—

No, too desperate.

“Class, I need to step out for a moment,” Mrs. Bad Breath announced. “Sit quietly and
behave yourselves
.” She went out the door.

“Party time!” some guy called out.

Everyone started talking noisily.

“So.” I cleared my throat to talk to the girl in front of me. But I didn't have a chance.

“Sydney!” Some other girl slid out of her chair and perched herself on the girl's desk. “What do you have next period?”

Suddenly there were girls surrounding the desk in front of me.

“Sydney, I looove your bag,” another girl gushed. “It's so fabulous!”

“Syd!” some guy called out from the other side of the room. The girls all squealed and ran over there. I watched Sydney hug him.

I looked around for someone else to talk to, but the girl on my other side was talking to someone else. The guy on my other side had his head back. I think he was asleep. I leaned down and pretended to be engrossed in the contents of my tote.

My bag was stuffed full. I had a lunch box in there. Inside my lunch box was a paper bag full of food. That way, if everyone looked like they carried lunch boxes, I was good. But if everyone had paper bags, I'd junk the lunch box. I also had a few dollars in case it was cooler to buy hot lunch.

I also had stuff to decorate my locker with. I was seriously excited to finally have a locker of my own. I was ready for a serious locker makeover. Emma had made fun of me.

“What theme is your locker going to be?” I'd asked her.

“Theme?” Emma said. “How about gray and metal?”

“No,” I said. “The inside. How are you going to decorate it?”

“A locker is a place for storage of serious academic materials,” Emma replied. “Decorating it is a distraction.”

She was crazy. My locker would be like my own room at school! My own little piece of the world! I was going to make it mine!

My locker theme was sheer genius. I'd thought of it at camp. The fashionista girls in my bunk would get these packages from their parents with new clothes in them. The shopping bags the clothes came in were so
cool—light blue, chocolate brown, black and white . . . So I'd asked them if I could have them.

I'd cut up the cutest bags and was going to stick them as a collage on my locker. I'd also brought:

A light-up mirror with a pink boa frame

A little pink holder for lip gloss, breath mints, and perfume spray

A beaded curtain just like I had in my room at home, but mini-size

Cute little magnets

A picture of me and Emma on the first day of camp. I was going to leave some space for new pictures—hopefully ones of me and my new friends from school!

I also had some other stuff at home on standby—for Emma's locker. Once I found out where her locker was and snagged her combination, I was going to sneak in and decorate it for her! I know she said she didn't want to, but I was sure once she saw mine she would change her mind.

“ . . . Max is looking hot!”

I looked up. Sydney and the other girls were back.

“Ew, he's all yours,” Sydney said. “He's so sixth grade. I'm looking for something new, fresh, you know?”

I tried not to look obvious as I watched Sydney and the other girls talking. I wished I had a group of friends that would be all excited to see me. I thought back to my friends from my last school. They'd been my friends for a long time. But even then things felt like they were changing. I hadn't told anyone, but I didn't feel like I fit in.

I wondered if I could find a place to fit in here. I wondered if Sydney would be interested in a new, fresh friend. Like me.

“I can't believe I'm only in one of your classes, Syd,” a girl sighed. “At least we have Science together. We can be partners!”

“Wait and see,” Sydney said. “If Jazmine James is in there, I'm ditching you. Last year she was my science fair partner and totally annoying but did all the work. Easy A.”

I wondered if I should tell her to keep an eye out for Emma. Emma had won our school science fair and would have gone all the way to state, but it was the same day as the state spelling bee, which was in our town. So my parents thought it would be easier to go to
the bee. Even though we'd have gotten a free overnight at a hotel for the state science thing. With a pool and a hot tub . . .

“Bad Breath is coming!” someone hissed, and everyone scrambled back to their seats.

I fastened my tote bag and tried to memorize my locker number. 36—no wait, 306 something . . .

Clang!
The school bell rang once. Okay! I was ready to get to my locker! I stood up and picked up my tote bag. Then I noticed I was the only one standing.

“It's just the warning bell,” Sydney turned around and whispered to me.

Oh. I sat back down. But Sydney didn't turn back around. She looked me up and down.

“Let me see your skirt,” she whispered.

I leaned out of my chair and showed her.

“Sweet,” she said.

Sweet! She said it was sweet!

“Let me see your shoes,” she said.

I held out my foot. I felt like I was being inspected. Would I pass? Would I fail? Sydney gave me a long look but didn't say anything. How could I keep the conversation going?

“I like your shirt—,” I started to say, but—

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Everyone jumped up and went for the door. Sydney stood up and smoothed down her hair. Then she was swallowed up in a crowd of people. But before she disappeared, she turned around and waved at me.

I grinned. I picked up my tote bag and went to find my locker.

HOMEROOM

I was the first person, alphabetically, in Homeroom 224, which put me in the first seat in the front row. The front row is my favorite place to sit. Preferably in the center seat, where I could focus on the teacher and the board. Plus, the teacher couldn't miss my hand waving to answer the questions, tee hee!

But this was just homeroom.

“Mills, Emma?”

“Here!” I raised my hand and smiled at the teacher. Sure, it was just homeroom. But it was always smart to make a good impression. The teacher didn't look up from his attendance sheet.

“Milton, Samuel?” he said.

Obviously not impressing the teacher, I lowered my hand and turned off my smile.

Then someone tapped my shoulder.

“What locker did you get?” a girl with reddish hair asked.

This was it! My first middle-school social interaction!

“Number 33639,” I told her. “Isn't that cool? All the digits are divisible by three.”

The girl gave me a weird look and turned to the girl on her right.

“Did you see Luke and Bryce in the hall?” Reddish-head said to the other girl.

“Yea. Sooo cute,” the other girl responded. “Did you hear Luke and Raiya broke up at the pool? I'm so going after Luke.”

“You wish,” Reddish-head said. “He's so out of your league.”

I tuned out. I missed Payton. Why wasn't she here in the seat behind me, like I'd planned? I stared ahead, and heard the voices of the class talking behind me. Were they talking about me? Were they saying,
What a snob; she won't even turn around?

I could do it. I could do it. I forced myself to smile, and I slowly turned, this time to the left. A boy with brown hair was talking to the blond boy behind him. They ignored me. I glanced around, still grinning like an idiot. Nobody even acknowledged my presence. I whipped my head back around and faced front again.