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nose. “What?”
    “Nothing, Miss,” says Hanna, still in character.
    I look up at her. The ties from her bonnet have come undone and sway under her chin. If I wore that hat I’d look like a face with a broomstick. She looks adorable, like a hot Holly Hobbie.
    I stir a teaspoon of sugar into my teacup and sigh. “Fine. I’ll tell you. I got hit in the nose by … someone that I …” I take a pause to consider whether I should admit my feelings for Eddie, and decide against it. No one should know. Once you say that kind of thing out loud, there’s no taking it back.
    Hanna wipes her hands on her apron. “I’m waiting …”
    “It’s nothing,” I say. “Really.”
    Hanna shrugs. “Well, you’ve got that ‘nothing’ written all over your face.”
    After my tea, and a fruitless hour-plus attempt to write my Columbia University essay—aptly titled “My Greatest Flaw and How It Helps Me”—I clear my teacup, tell Hanna her new theme is great, and get ready to leave. My biggest flaw is clearly my nose, but right now, I can’t properly put into words how it’s helping me. Maybe because it isn’t.
    I’m just slinging my bag onto my shoulder when my mom comes in. She’s dressed in a bland skirt and jacket, her work outfit, and her cheeks are flushed from walking over from her office.
    “I thought I’d find you here,” she says, looking around to take in the change of scenery. She gestures toward Hanna. “She’s so talented … she should have her own television show or something.”
    “She did, Mom,” I say and raise my eyebrows.
    “Oh, right.” My mother studies my face for a second. She knows better than to ask about the puffiness in the middle of my face. “Ready to go? I figured we could walk home together.”
    I nod, collect my things, and meet her by the door. We head out together into the fading daylight of our town.
    At first glance, Weston seems like your average suburban town settled sometime in the 1700s by Puritans. Whenever we had a field trip to “an important historical site,” we would wind up sitting in a circle on the town green looking at the white-steepled church, or the slanting brick building that was once a famous writer’s house, or the clapboard structure along Maple Street that a couple hundred years ago housed horses and town meetings, but now is home to a variety of cute clothing and housewares shops.
    However, just because our sweet little suburbia looks normal doesn’t mean it’s average. The truth is, my hometown is a bit peculiar. The library has a pillow pit (during snowstorms you’re allowed to sleep there), the PTA controls how we socialize at lunch, and just when you think you’ve got the place figured out, it changes. Two years ago, for example, after researching the effects of a liberal arts education, the school board switched visual and performing arts from electives to requirements for graduation. And instead of Starbucks and the Gap and all the other chain stores, we have little boutiques and a diner. We have Any Time Now, which is so far from a franchise, you can’t even imagine. Weston actually has a town ordinance against such chain stores—not blocking them (because I think that might be illegal), but blocking buildings of a certain height in the downtown area, which basically means that unless someone wanted to open the smallest Best Buy ever, chain stores are a no-go. The retail coffee places from the strip mall fifteen minutes down the road wouldn’t survive here—people are loyal to their little cafés. Thus, my beloved Any Time Now.
    And Weston’s quirky not just because of its lack of well-known eateries. We’ve got a hermit living in Woodland Hills (the hiking trail area behind the town hall) and we’re the proud host of the Street Art Competition (anyone can enter, drawing or painting on the sidewalks and store windows). Also, six years ago, some rich entrepreneur gave the elementary school a few acres of land and now they grow