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house.
    Good to meet you all.
    â€œNo worries, Brooke,” I added. Four. I smiled at her. “Maybe sometime next week?”
    â€œSure,” Brooke said. “That would be great.”
    â€œYes,” I said, “it will be,” and walked away with all of them still watching.

BROOKE
    ALL I KNEW about the girl who showed up at my locker today was she had green hair and she’s in my math class. I couldn’t even remember her name. Opal or Thelma or something. But she asked me over, and since I couldn’t think of a good no, I said okay, sure, sometime.
    All my friends were like
what
?
    To be fair
,
she is one of those girls who stomps around in her heavy-soled boots and tights with holes, moody and awkward, and probably writes poetry in her notebooks during class about how nobody understands her. Not my usual pal. But my mom says,
You don’t have to be friends with everybody, you just can’t be unkind to anybody.
    So, whatever. Probably it’ll never happen anyway.
    First, though, everybody was coming over to my house, and how was I going to explain why both my parents were home? I really did not need to be explaining my family’s private business to the whole world. Or even just my closest friends.
    And no way this crew would not ask a lot of questions.

TRULY
    THIS AFTERNOON a bunch of us went over to Brooke’s house. Just “the girls”—Brooke (of course), Natasha, Evangeline, Lulu, and me. We went right to the kitchen because we were baking cookies for the eighth-grade bake sale tomorrow. Her parents were both home and they were so friendly and nice, just like Brooke. Happy to see a whole crew of us, but then they didn’t hang around nervously helping get stuff out for us the way my parents do. They hadn’t even prepared anything for us. Just, anything we wanted to get or do was fine. Then her mom went to drive Brooke’s gorgeous older sister to ballet, and their dad and little brother went off somewhere on bikes. Everyone in Brooke’s whole family has big happy smiles and dimples in their cheeks. They’re all perfect.
    After her parents left, we talked about science projects. We all complimented Lulu, whose presentation was today. She jumped around a little, she was so happy we all thought her bubbles went over well. She’s very enthusiastic.
    They all went
gross!
when I said my report was on dust mite feces. In a nice way, though. I sucked it up and dealt. I think it went pretty well. Might just take more practice, to be smooth and not feel lurchy in the face of their attention and joking. But I think I am improving. Instead of deciding to come up with a completely new science project tonight because mine is obviously too horrible, I said, “I know, gross, right? But sort of interesting? Maybe? I don’t know. We’ll see how many people puke when I give it tomorrow.”
    â€œI might puke now!” Lulu said. “Seriously? There’s bug crap in dust? Ew!”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    â€œOkay, I fully have to stop eating dust as a snack,” Brooke said.
    We all laughed.
    â€œBut seriously, Truly,” Lulu said. “I’m sure you’ll do really good.” Lulu is almost as small as me but much sturdier, with her shiny black hair all yanked back tight in a ponytail. Every time she talks I have to smile because she sounds like she sucked helium from a balloon.
    â€œThanks, Lulu,” I said.
    â€œYou will,” Evangeline agreed. “You’re really good at oral reports. You make anything interesting.”
    â€œYou’re stressing me out!” I said.
They noticed me? Before?
    They laughed some more. Phew. Though I wasn’t actually kidding. When I first saw Evangeline in sixth grade, I thought she was a teacher. She just seems so grown-up and in charge. She never talked to me directly until I started sitting at the Popular Table except one time in gym, when she yelled, “Get