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yes!”
    â€œYes? Yes, what?”
    â€œYes, I’ll meet up with you at Winterfest.” I give him my biggest-wattage smile. “On my birthday, you know. We’re doing the limo thing. A Hummer.”
    â€œI didn’t ask you.”
    Oh, now he’s playing drama queen. Just because I made him wait. “Tyler, you’re being, like, ridiculous. You dropped hints, begged me practically. The e-mail, text messages, et cetera….”
    â€œI didn’t send you a thing.”
    â€œOh, shut up!” You did too. Liar!
    I had it memorized.
    I really wish the birds outside weren’t chirping. Makes everything seem happy and right now I am anything but happy. A crowd gathers around us. Now Caylin and Petra strut down the hall and circle around me. But they’re whispering furiously to each other and laughing. It’s like they’re all in on something funny, and I’m the punch line. Sweat beads down the back of my neck. My skin prickles, my nose feels strangely heavy—because I’m wearing glasses. “What??!!!” I pull them off, and suddenly my world goes out of focus. “I’ve got glasses!”
    â€œAren’t you quick,” quips Petra, who in her green dress looks like a fuzzy blob of mold.
    Normally, I wear my glasses only in the morning before I put in my contacts. Okay, this is weird. I really thought I put my contacts in before school. I scratch my neck like mad, which makes everyone laugh.
    At me. At me? At me!
    I slide the frames back on and everything becomes clear. Doors have edges and people have strange staring faces. But that isn’t the really scary part. The scary part is that I’m wearing a black skirtwith an elastic waist band. Elastic! And ankle socks with unicorns. I’ve got on some kind of polyester blouse, too, with horses jumping over fences. How had I not noticed this before?
    â€œSomeone did something to me!” I yell.
    â€œYou’re tripping, Ernestine,” says Petra.
    Ernestine. She called me Ernestine. Why is she calling me by my old name? What is up?!!!! Staring at the cement, I speed down the hall to my special place. The place that I go when I’m sad or depressed. The place that always puts me in a good mood.
    The Bathroom
    Specifically, the mirror.
    I dart into the bathroom. I have to see myself SOON. Taking a deep breath, I get the usual whiff of soggy paper towels, bleach, and urine. Slowly, I raise my chin to the mirror. No need to move too quickly. Soon I would see that perfectly symmetrical face, lovely green eyes with lashes so dark and long they look false, that aquiline nose without a bump, smooth skin with no blemishes, no circles under the eyes, and my long auburn hair which is always silky—so long as it’s properly conditioned.
    Ninai, Olivia’s Girl Scout friend, bumps into mebefore I can check myself out. “Remember, the Book Worms are meeting after school today,” she says, actually whipping out a toothbrush and charger from her backpack.
    Huh? The Book Worms, that’s the name of those library helpers. Like I would do that. Ninai is always jumping into convos and making comments. I admire geeks who keep to themselves. At least they know their place. Not Ninai. She’d speak to anyone, even with an electric toothbrush in her mouth.
    So now I look up, staring at the face staring back at me. There must be some mistake. I must still be washing my hands. There must be someone else looking at herself in the mirror. I open my mouth. The person in the mirror opens her mouth. I touch my nose, and so does the skeevy in the mirror.
    Ninai, with her mouth full of toothpaste and looking official in her Girl Scout outfit, rushes over to me, staring intently. “What’s the matter? You don’t look well.” She spits in the sink. “Are you sick, Ernestine?”
    â€œErnestine?!!!! Why are you calling me that?” My neck is perspiring again.