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gaping stares when they were coming at me from all angles at once. Keeping my chin up and avoiding direct eye contact with anyone, I moved quickly through the food line and paused at the door to the outdoor courtyard. It was sunny and gorgeous out and I longed to sit at one of the picnic tables under the shade of the thick maple trees, but the courtyard was Crestie territory. The Norms pretty much kept to the indoor cafeteria, except for the brave few who occasionally ventured to the tables near the garbage cans, along the periphery.
    Hammond saw me through the window, salivating there like a loser, and started to lift his hand in a wave until he saw Chloe and the girls walking toward him. Then he blushed beet red, and I turned around and took the first seat I saw—at the very end of an empty table. To my right, nothing but freshmen. To my left, a group of pasty, black-clad kids who had obviously spent their summer watching and rewatching the first two seasons of True Blood in someone’s basement. I recognized a few faces at the table across the aisle, but they were way too far away for me to consider getting up and going over there. Plus, what if they wanted to have nothing to do with me? What if the Crestie poison had trickled down to the Norms?
    I took a huge bite of my turkey sandwich, resolving to eat as quickly as possible and spend the rest of the period with my face in a book, letting the rest of the world fade to white noise.
    “Would you ever get a nipple ring?”
    A tall, lanky guy with a buzz cut sat down to my right, dropping his tray and a Time magazine on the table. On the chair next to him he slapped down a guitar catalog and a soccer ball.
    “Wha?” That’s how surprised I was. I couldn’t even finish the word.
    “Don’t mind him. He has a filtering problem.”
    Annie Johnston, Faith’s BFF, sat down across from him. She was wearing a black T-shirt dress and purple-and-white striped tights. On her thumb was a black star tattoo. In her nose, a tiny diamond stud. I believe the last time I saw her she was wearing a Jonas Brothers T-shirt and pink glitter barrettes.
    “There’s an article in here about it, and I’m interested,” the guy said, gesturing at his magazine. “So, would you?”
    “No plans at present,” I said. “But never say never.”
    “Good answer,” he said, flashing an adorable, dimpled smile.
    Annie whipped out a small, battered notebook with stickers all over the cover and jotted something down. I saw my name at the top of the page and angled for a better look, but she snapped it closed and shoved it back in her backpack. Weird.
    “Um, hey, Annie,” I said awkwardly. “How’ve you been?”
    “Functioning. You?”
    “Good, I guess,” I replied hesitantly.
    Wasn’t this the girl who used to burst into select songs from Wicked in the middle of lunch? What was with the acerbic?
    “This is David Drake,” she said, gesturing with a potato chip.
    “We were lab partners in eighth,” he said.
    I lit up in recognition. “Right! You never forget the person you cut up your first frog with.”
    He tilted his Gatorade bottle toward me, and I clicked it with my Snapple.
    “That’s funny,” Annie stated, not sounding amused at all. It was more like she was making an anthropological observation. “You’re funny.”
    “Um, thanks,” I said.
    “So, we came over here because we figure we should be friends now that you’re back,” David said.
    I narrowed my eyes. “No offense, but . . . why, exactly?”
    “Ever hear that saying ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?” Annie asked.
    “No.”
    “It’s a saying,” she said, like she was trying to convince me.
    “I believe you,” I replied. “But what does it have to do with anything?”
    “We hate the Cresties, the Cresties hate you,” Annie said, lifting a hand. “Therefore, we should all be friends.”
    The lump in my stomach traveled up to my throat. David must have noticed something in my face.
    “Not that