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Nisha said she was hallucinating.
    I didn’t see Francesca very much because they had her doing all sorts of Welcome to Blanton Middle–type activities. But finally, it was sixth period, which meant, drumroll, Espee’s U.S. History. And I don’t know how this could have happened, but somehow, instead of taking seats the way we always did—LilyEvieNisha—we ended up LilyNishaEvie. So the
very second
I sat down, Francesca slipped into the empty seat to my right. She dumped some loose papers onthe desk, gave me her dazzling smile, then pointed at some writing on the whiteboard
    â€œSPUSH?” she practically shouted. “What’s Spush, Evie?”
    â€œIt’s not Spush, it’s SP’s U.S. History,” I said. “Stephanie Pierce.”
    â€œOh, right. Her. I met her at the New Students Breakfast. She’s sort of funny, actually. They put out all these yummy pastries, but all
she
had was gallons of black coffee.”
    Immediately I saw the entire scene: Francesca taking random bites of fifteen different muffins, while Stephanie Pierce stood behind her, caffeinating herself for the entire school year and thinking,
What is this girl’s PROBLEM?
    The classroom door opened. “See you later,” Espee called to someone down the hall, then speed-walked into the classroom.
    That was when Nisha started humming the Miss Gulch, Wicked Witch of the West music from
The Wizard of Oz
.
    â€œShut up,” I hissed. “She’ll hear you!”
    â€œEvie?” Nisha said. “You okay?”
    I nodded. But I didn’t look at her. Instead, I was staring at Espee.
    Because I’d seen her a bunch of times rushing past inthe hallways. But this was the first time I’d ever seen her
up close
, and after a summer of Lily’s fashion magazine, I couldn’t decide if this was the weirdest-looking woman I’d ever seen in my life, or the coolest. Aside from the tallness and the skinniness and the random silvery streaks in her almost-black hair, she had pale, un-made-up skin, and light aquamarine eyes. She might have been wearing a sort of intellectual black eyeliner, but she moved around so much, I couldn’t get a good look. And her clothes—it was hard to imagine someone waking up for the first day of school and thinking,
Oh, I know. I’ll wear my shapeless black pants outfit today.
But you knew she’d been thinking something, because everything about her seemed sharp and focused and on purpose. Even the way she grabbed a blue marker and wrote under the word “SPUSH,” in a very straight,
un-penmanshippy script:
    History is a story we tell ourselves
    â€œWhat do you suppose this means?” she asked suddenly, as if she’d just discovered some kind of important clue
    No one answered
    Someone in the back of the room coughed
    â€œIt means history is a lie,” called out this boy named Brendan Meyers who all of last year never once wore deodorant
    â€œReally?” Espee cocked her head to one side, which made her hair swing excitedly. “Then why study it?”
    â€œBecause we have to?” Kayla asked. I didn’t look, but from the car alarm sound, I could tell Gaby was giggling.
    â€œOkay, true, but that’s the brainless answer,” Espee said, her eyes sparkling. “What if we
didn’t
have to? Would we somehow
want
to tell ourselves lies?”
    â€œOh, absolutely,” Francesca blurted out
    â€œReally? Why do you say that, Francesca?”
    So Espee knew her name; not a good sign. On the other hand, she was smiling. You could see she had slightly crooked teeth, which for some reason made her seem younger
    And Francesca was smiling back. “Because lies make people feel good. And maybe nobody knows the whole truth, anyway.”
    Omigod , I wrote in teeny-tiny letters on the first page of my Spush notebook. Francesca is sitting here admitting she’s a liar !!
    â€œHmm,” Espee