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Therese.”
    She had actually gone by “Katie” up until fifth grade. Then one Sunday night, coming back from a softball tournament five hours away, she’d been sitting in the back of the family SUV with the entire weekend’s worth of homework spread across her lap. (As she remembered it, the teachers in fifth grade always acted like homework was Very Important. And they gave a lot.) It had occurred to her that she could get everything done that much faster if she eliminated the three unnecessary letters from her name.
    The other girls on her team had been so impressedwith her stroke of genius—and jealous that KT was the only one who could pare her name down so easily.
    Besides, “KT” looked more like a softball player’s name than “Katie.”
    “Kaitlin Therese,” Mr. Huck said speculatively. He smiled. “See? There you go. Just start telling people to call you Kaitlin Therese. They’ll start thinking of you differently. They’ll—”
    “You want me to change who I am?” KT asked. Her voice came out as an indignant squawk. Even if Mr. Huck wascrazy, she shouldn’t have to put up with this. “Change my whole identity?”
    “No, no, not that,” Mr. Huck said soothingly. “You’d still be KT underneath. This is just temporary, just to help you get along. Just to survive middle school.”
    “I am surviving middle school,” KT snarled. “I’m surviving it fine. Just last night at the Rysdale Invitational—”
    She broke off, partly because she didn’t know what to say about the Rysdale Invitational. Had her team won or lost?
    But, also—Mr. Huck’s face stayed so blank.
    Yeah, he’s a lacrosse person, not a softball person, but he knows I was playing a big tournament this weekend, KT thought. We talked about it in class on Friday.
    Mr. Huck always started his Friday classes by asking if anyone had big plans for the weekend. Last Friday KT had mentioned the Rysdale tournament, and how hard her team had worked just to qualify to play in it. She’d said it was the biggest tournament of the winter season for girls her age anywhere in the entire country. Mr. Huck had looked right at her the whole time she was talking. He’d asked questions. He’d seemed impressed. It wasn’t like when Kona Briggs talkedabout her piano recital and Mr. Huck half listened while taking attendance or checking his e-mail. And when KT had finished talking, Mr. Huck had said, “Well, class, don’t you think we should congratulate KT—and wish her team luck—by giving her a round of applause?”
    It had been a nice moment. One of the best things that had ever happened to KT in a social-studies class.
    How could Mr. Huck have forgotten all of that now?
    Somehow KT was afraid to ask.
    “I’m going to class,” she said, pulling her arm back and whirling away from him.
    She’d barely gone two steps before Mr. Huck said in an embarrassed way, “Uh, KT? This way.”
    She turned around and saw that he was holding open the door of the nearest classroom.
    She looked at the door, looked at the hallway beyond them— yeah, that is Mr. Huck’s room. But have there always been archways and another hall across from it? Why did I get so confused before?
    She stepped into the classroom and headed toward the back. All year long she’d sat beneath a poster that said GEOG RAPHY : IT’S WHERE YOU’RE AT!
    But the poster wasn’t there anymore.
    Neither was her desk, or any other.
    Instead the entire room was filled with treadmills.



Chαpt e r f iνe
    Keep your head down and pitch.
    That was the Coach Mike advice that ran through KT’s mind now. It dated back to a game KT’s team had played during a violent windstorm last summer. Rain never fell, and the lightning sirens never went off, so the two teams kept playing and playing and playing, even though some of the girls were struggling just to stay upright in the extreme gusts. Later one of the team dads found a news story online saying that the winds in the area had actually