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  It had wounded her.

  She’d returned to Calvin three years later—older, no taller (Randy was wiry and petite), and wary of friendships. And Anna, although she and Randy had written letters to each other sporadically, hadn’t exactly spent the previous three years just waiting for Randy’s return. She and Jessie had made new friends, and in fact, their closely knit group of girls had become the leaders of their class in junior high—they were the ones most of the other girls looked up to, envied, copied, tried to impress, and wanted to sit with.

  Randy had fit in, though. Anna and Jessie had welcomed her back, so their friends had, too. But Randy was cynical sometimes. “Do I really fit in?” she’d asked Anna once. “After all, I’m black.” Three years earlier that thought wouldn’t have occurred to Randy. Now it was the focus of her life. Where did she fit in? Was she really an “Oreo”? She didn’t know.

  And Anna certainly didn’t either. But she did know that right now she was glad to see Randy back from her family’s summer vacation.

  Anna smiled at Jessie and Randy in the back seat. “Mom’s just taking us to the mall and dropping us off. Right, Mom?” she said, facing front. “Hint, hint.”

  Mrs. Wallace sighed. “I don’t know, Anna.” She glanced nervously in the rear-view mirror. “I could always stay and shop …”

  “Mom, what could happen to us in the mall? It’s not like we’re going to New York City. We know how to be careful. We’ll never let go of our purses, we won’t talk to strangers, we won’t run naked up the down escalator.”

  Jessie and Randy giggled, and even Mrs. Wallace smiled. Anna breathed a sigh of relief. She was pretty sure her mother wouldn’t stay. Thank goodness, because she didn’t want her to catch sight of Paige.

  “So, Mom,” said Anna again, “you’re just dropping us off, right?”

  “Yes,” replied Mrs. Wallace. “Against my better judgment. Do me a favor, though—stay out of the video arcade, all right?”

  “Oh, definitely, Mom. No problem.”

  Anna and her friends hated the video arcade. It was noisy and filled with little kids. Besides, video games were passé. History.

  Mrs. Wallace flicked on her right blinker and headed down the exit ramp. To the left stood Calvin Mall, a monstrosity, an eyesore … a shopper’s dream.

  True to her word, Mrs. Wallace let the girls out in the parking lot by the back entrance and, after Randy assured her that her father would pick the girls up later, drove off.

  The girls entered the mall at Foreman’s Department Store and walked through to the central area.

  “We’re meeting Paige by the fountain,” Anna said. “She should be there already. We’re a little late.”

  “I can see the fountain and she’s not there,” said Randy.

  “Well, let’s sit down. Maybe she’s off ‘shopping.’”

  Anna and Jessie began to giggle and were still laughing as they settled themselves on a bench to wait for Paige. Randy remained silent. They all knew Paige wasn’t off shopping. She was off shoplifting, which never failed to make Randy angry.

  Paige turned up shortly, a big shoulder bag in tow.

  “Been shopping?” Anna couldn’t help asking.

  More giggling.

  Beautiful Paige perched on one end of the bench, and the other girls inched over to make room for her.

  “I got here early,” replied Paige. “I’ve been shopping for almost an hour.”

  “Oh, God,” said Jessie. “Is there anything left?”

  “What’d you get?” asked Anna.

  Paige looked in both directions before opening her shoulder bag.

  “Do you have to show us here?” asked Randy. “Couldn’t this wait until we’re outside?”

  “If you’re chicken,” replied Paige huffily, sitting back and starting to close the bag, “I can—”

  “Oh, come on,” said Anna. “Jessie and I aren’t chicken. We want to see, don’t we, Jessie?” Anna flashed an annoyed look at Randy.

  But Randy wasn’t about to give in. “I’m going to the stationery store,” she said. “I’ll wait for you guys in there.”

  Paige made a face at Randy’s retreating figure. Then she opened the bag. She pulled out a sweater, a pair of earrings, a belt, a credit card case, and a tube of body glitter.

  “How much did you pay for all this stuff?” asked Jessie.

  Paige smiled. “Four dollars. I had to buy the body glitter. It’s from Fiona’s, and they watch you like hawks in there. The other stuff came from Hurley’s. You could walk out of there with an elephant and no one would notice.”

  Anna and Jessie giggled.

  Paige’s smile remained pasted across her face. “Well, let’s go meet Randy before she turns me in,” she said.

  Anna sighed. She wished Paige and Randy got along better. They were both part of “the group,” but they had never hit it off. Despite Randy’s attitude, though, Anna admitted (only to herself) that Paige was really the one at fault. She knew that Paige considered Randy worlds apart from her.

  The Beaulacs lived in a mansion, the biggest home in Calvin. It wasn’t even near Anna and Jessie and Randy’s neighborhood. Mrs. Beaulac had hired two people to keep the house running—a cook/housekeeper and a gardener/chauffeur. Anna knew Paige was convinced that Randy ought to be jealous of her. Randy, however, led a “normal” life with two parents and a sister who loved her. The Taylors weren’t divorced, and there were no drinking problems over at 1252 Linden Lane. Nevertheless, Paige was sure that deep down Randy wanted a life like the Beaulacs’. A fancy name and a big house and people to wait on her. Her own credit cards with unlimited spending.

  Anna, Jessie, and Paige found Randy browsing through the stationery store, her arms loaded with notebooks and pens and paper and reinforcements and dividers, and all sorts of things Paige couldn’t be bothered with. One spiral notebook was enough for her.

  “You’re getting all that?” Paige asked her. What she was really saying was, “If I had as little money as you, I certainly wouldn’t waste it on school supplies.”

  Randy ignored the unspoken question. “Yeah,” she said. “My parents always give Tanya and me some money for school stuff at the beginning of the year.”

  “How sweet,” muttered Paige, but only Anna heard her.

  “I want to get off to a good start in high school,” Randy went on. “I’m going to make my mark at Calvin High. Scholastically, that is.”

  Paige turned away. “I’m going to make my mark at Calvin High,” she mimicked softly. She headed for the notebook aisle while Randy took her supplies to the cash register. Paige had made her mark at a total of five schools—four private schools and Calvin Junior High. CHS would make the sixth.

  Mrs. Beaulac had had no intention of sending Paige to public school, but Paige had been tossed out of every private school in the area. And her year at a boarding school, in fifth grade, had been a dismal failure. Her mother’s only choice was to send her daughter to the Calvin public junior high. And that was where Paige had transferred just after Christmas during seventh grade, and met Anna.

  Paige flounced down the notebook aisle, picked up one notebook and one Bic pen, and got in line at the cash register behind Randy. Anna had never seen her shoplift. It was something she would do only when she was by herself.

  “Are you guys finished already?” Anna called to Paige and Randy from around a display of lunch boxes.

  “Yeah, but take your time,” replied Randy. “We don’t mind waiting.”

  Anna returned to the notebooks. Her arms were full, and she already had a notebook for every subject she’d be taking, but she hadn’t found the one she most wanted—a composition book with a splotchy black-and-white cover like the one Peggy had pulled out from under her mattress the day before.

  Jessie appeared at her elbow. “Ready?” she asked.

  “Almost.” Anna glanced at Jessie’s pile of supplies. “Hey, where’d you find that?”

  “Over there,” replied Jes
sie, pointing.

  Anna turned. Behind her were the composition books. Slam books, Anna told herself with a smile. She picked one up. “Now I’m ready,” she said to Jessie. “Come on, let’s go.”

  When the girls left the store clutching their bags, Anna thought, Ready or not, Calvin High School, here we come.

  Chapter Three

  ON THE MORNING OF her first day in high school, Anna was up early, nervous and excited. She was determined to make a good impression on the upperclassmen, so she changed her clothes three times before she decided she was wearing an outfit that was neither too babyish nor too matronly, too plain nor too punk.

  Randy rang the doorbell early that morning, and Anna rushed to meet her.

  “I’m so nervous!” they said at the same time. They laughed.

  “You look great,” Anna told Randy. “How many times did you have to change before you put that outfit together?”

  “Three,” replied Randy as they set off.

  “Me too,” said Anna. “Oh, Randy, what are we getting ourselves into? High school. We’re going to be lowly little freshmen. We won’t even know most of the kids in our own class since they’ll come from the other junior highs. And it’s true about the upperclassmen and the lipstick and freshman hazing. Hilary came home with a big red F marked on her forehead after her first day at CHS. And we don’t know our way around. I don’t even remember where the office is.”

  The previous spring, all the eighth-graders in Calvin had been taken on tours of the high school building. It had seemed vast and imposing to Anna. She remembered nothing of the layout, only a blur of staircases, halls, and doorways. From the outside, the building looked like a medieval fortress. Inside, it seemed like a maze.

  “Hey, there’s Jessie. Jessie!” Randy called.

  “Hi!” replied Jessie, grinning broadly. She was running across her front lawn, notebook tucked under one arm, purse over the other, braid flying. “At last!” she exclaimed. “School is finally here! The summer is over.”

  Randy shook her head. “I like school and all that,” she said, “but you’re amazing.”

  “Well, you know,” Jessie replied vaguely.

  “Yeah,” said Anna and Randy. They knew all too well.

  “So what are we waiting for?” said Jessie. “Let’s get going. I’ve been waiting for this day since June twenty-third.”

  When they reached the high school, Anna searched the campus. “Paige said she’d wait for us out front, but I don’t see her.”

  At that moment, a long silver Cadillac pulled up near the front door of the school. A door opened. A black man in a uniform got out. He walked to the back door and held it open while Paige Beaulac slithered out, her notebook in hand.

  “What time shall I return for you?” Anna could hear Dwight ask.

  “Oh, three o’clock, I guess.” Paige didn’t even look at him. She spotted Anna, Randy, and Jessie and ran over to them. “Oh, I am so embarrassed,” she exclaimed. “Why do I have to start school like this? Everybody’s looking.” Paige’s face was flaming.

  “If he could just have let me off on the side street,” Paige went on. “Even that would have made a difference.” Paige sighed. “Can you believe Mother’s in Europe again?” she said grumpily. “She’s never around for anything important in my life.”

  And when she is around, Anna thought, she’s usually drunk. Anna wondered how Mrs. Beaulac had managed to win full custody of Paige in the bitter battle that had followed the Beaulacs’ divorce.

  Anna looked at the kids beginning to trickle into the building. “Hey, we better go!” she said.

  “What’s the big hurry?” asked Paige.

  “The big hurry is that we want to find our homerooms before it gets too crowded in there. The fewer people who see us wandering around, the better.”

  The girls walked to the main entrance and edged inside. Ahead of them was the school trophy case, cups and plaques and team photos proudly displayed.

  “It’s kind of exciting, isn’t it?” said Randy in a hushed tone.

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to whisper,” replied Paige. “This isn’t a mausoleum.”

  The girls turned right and walked along a dim, noisy corridor until they came to an intersection.

  “Now what?” whispered Jessie.

  They pulled out their schedule cards, as if the cards would provide directions to the rooms.

  I hate this, thought Anna. Talk about bottom of the heap.

  “Randy and I have to get to the second floor,” said Jessie. “And there’s a staircase. We better take it.”

  “We’ll see you guys at freshman lunch,” added Randy.

  “Okay,” said Anna.

  “See you later!”

  “See you later!”

  The girls parted. Anna and Paige looked around.

  “Hey, we’re standing right in front of my homeroom!” Paige said suddenly.

  “I guess I’m on my own, then,” Anna replied, her knees beginning to feel shaky.

  “Good luck,” Paige whispered. She ducked into the classroom.

  Anna stood in the middle of the intersection. Students buzzed around her. She was just about to choose a direction randomly, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  She turned and found herself looking into a handsome, concerned face. “You look kind of lost,” the boy said.

  All of Anna’s defenses crumbled. “I’m looking for room one-eighteen,” she told him.

  The boy frowned. “One-eighteen,” he repeated slowly. “Oh, yeah! That’s down on the plaza level. Go downstairs, turn right, and go past the metal shop. It’s one of the rooms on the intersecting corridor.”

  “Thanks,” said Anna. “I’d never have found it.”

  “No problem,” said the boy. “And good luck.”

  Anna smiled at him. Then she turned and headed for the staircase. Maybe high school wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  The lower level was much quieter than the main floor. In fact, Anna didn’t see any students at all. Nevertheless, she turned right and began looking for the shop. She passed the boiler room—and came to a dark dead end.

  He must have meant left, not right, Anna told herself.

  She retraced her steps, reached the stairs, and kept going. She turned several corners, found the offices of the coach and the school dietitian, and a room full of computers—but no classrooms.

  When she heard the warning bell ring, she began to panic. It was slowly dawning on her that she’d been tricked. Where was that staircase? Anna rushed around a corner and found stairs, although not the ones she’d come down. She ran up them anyway and emerged on the noisy ground floor.

  For a moment, she stood stock-still.

  “Excuse me … Excuse me,” said a harried voice behind her.

  Anna stepped aside to let the person behind her pass by, and bumped into a red-haired girl who was leaning against a locker talking to two friends.

  “Hey!” the girl exclaimed.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said Anna. Then she screwed up her courage and asked the way to room one-eighteen.

  “Right over there, through the boys’ room,” said the redhead.

  Anna felt her face burn. She began to walk away.

  “Hey, come back,” called one of the girls.

  Anna turned around hopefully.

  “We don’t give information away for free, you know,” said the girl.

  “But you didn’t—”

  “The price is clean shoes.” The redhead handed Anna a tissue and pointed downward.

  Anna looked around in desperation. The halls were beginning to clear out, but the next bell hadn’t rung.

  “What’re you waiting for? Christmas?”

  Slowly, Anna stooped down. She set her notebook and the slam book on the floor and began shining the girl’s shoes. After a few seconds, the girl said, “That’s enough.”

  Anna picked up her books. As she was straightening up, a hand reached out for her face. Anna
saw the lipstick tube and felt the three quick strokes.

  “Have a nice day, freshman!” called the red-haired girl. She and her friends hurried down the hall just as the second bell rang.

  “This is terrific, this is just terrific,” Anna muttered. “Now I’m late.” She reached up to daub at the lipstick on her forehead and realized that she was standing in front of the door to her homeroom.

  She heaved a sigh that was relief mixed with humiliation, and went inside.

  The cafeteria at CHS was as noisy and as crowded as the hallways were between classes. Anna and Paige, who had run into each other in the corridor, stood at the entrance, scanning faces for Jessie and Randy.

  Anna was almost afraid to go in. She was not used to feeling unsure of herself, and she didn’t like it. She was supposed to be Miss Popularity, not Miss Invisibility.

  Anna felt someone brush by them. “Hi, Paige,” said an airy voice.

  The voice belonged to Casey Reade, who waltzed past Paige with a grin on her face and Gooz Drumfield on her arm.

  Paige smiled sweetly. “Hi, Gooz,” she said pointedly.

  “Hey,” Gooz replied vaguely.

  Griswald Drumfield had been the most gorgeous boy in junior high school. His blond hair curled just slightly, his deep-blue eyes always sparkled, and his even white teeth smiled at the world from a deeply tanned face. Gooz was rich (though not as rich as Paige), smart, and athletic. If he was a bit quiet, nobody noticed, particularly not Paige, who, Anna knew, had set eyes on Gooz on her first day in public school and had never taken them off him. Gooz, however, had shown no interest in Paige, and Casey had snagged him at the end of eighth grade.

  Paige made a face, and Anna groaned inwardly. This could be trouble. Paige had never liked Casey much anyway. She said Casey was too cute.