School used to be one of Olivia’s favorite places to be.

  She liked learning things because she guessed the right answers most of the time and the teachers would smile at her like she was their favorite. Then they would call on someone else and try to hide their disappointment when they made a mistake. People like Sammy and Joel. They were always daydreaming when Mr. Monroe called on them and then they’d make some stupid joke to distract from the fact that they never knew any of the answers.

  Olivia’s parents told her it was rude to tell the other kids when they were wrong, but she didn’t understand why. Was it better for them to keep thinking the wrong things? They said that she was too bossy and that no one would ever want to play with her if she kept telling the other kids what to do, but didn’t they understand that she was only trying to help? Her advice could help kids avoid getting hurt or help everyone have more fun if only people would listen to her. This particular lesson was even harder for her to learn because whenever there was a fight between students the teachers chose her side.

  But then things changed. The other students got tired of her telling them what to do and decided to teach her a lesson of their own. One of the girls in the class, Stephanie, enlisted the help of several of her classmates and made a new game of bullying Olivia at every turn. They called her names, most of which were too stupid to even be hurtful, but they still bothered her. Olive Oil, Oinkia, Livid, any play one words they could use that would make her feel like they had control over her. They stole her books and hid them in various places around the school. Once she found a book hanging from the top of the jungle gym. Another time they’d thrown her lunch bag into a puddle. They broke her pencils and glued them back together so they would look like they were still whole until she started to write with them and they snapped in half.

  When she answered a question in class now, the other children would make oinking sounds every time she opened her mouth. It was true that she had been going through a growth spurt and her insatiable hunger had led her to grow in girth as well as height. She was already taller than most of her classmates but weighed more than several of them put together. The teachers tried to put a stop to the teasing, but they couldn’t always intervene when the other children cornered her in the hall or on the playground.

  Ironically, the more the children made fun of her for her weight, the more she lost her appetite, and with her body’s rapid growth she lost weight quickly. Within a year, she had transformed from a chubby child into a gangly tween, awkwardly thin and so uncomfortable with her height that she hunched over most of the time to pretend to be smaller than she was. The change did not ease the teasing. She went from being labeled Oinkia to being called Stick Girl.

  Olivia begged her parents to send her to a different school, but they were adamant that she couldn’t run away from her problems. They told her to toughen up and to stay focused on her school work. But Olivia longed for a friend who would understand her. And her desire to belong made her decide to remain silent when the teacher asked for volunteers. She began purposely making mistakes on her homework so that the teachers would stop congratulating her in class. The teachers noticed the difference and several called her aside to discuss it, but she could be incredibly stubborn when she had made up her mind and her young mind was convinced that learning to get along with others was more important than good grades. She’d learned the material well enough. But she didn’t have to prove it to anyone.

  Despite all her efforts, the other students never really accepted her. The teasing became less frequent and she no longer had to run around the school looking for lost books or find her homework in the trash. Her fluorescent glitter encrusted pencils remained intact and she would use them until they were little nubs crowned with eraser toppers in the shape of dragons. Instead of being an outcast, she was invisible, a forgettable backdrop to the popular children's’ antics. This state was an improvement compared to the constant bullying, but it was not what she craved. She was terribly lonely.

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  Until the Jacksons moved to the neighborhood.

  Jade’s exuberance was infectious, and even when she was being cranky or her moods were shifting with the wind, she was never far from the center of attention. Unlike Olivia, she wasn’t very good at school. She didn’t have the patience for the tediousness of multiplication tables or diagramming sentences. The desire to create infused every aspect of Jade’s being and she was constantly doodling in the margins of her books or making portraits instead of taking notes.

  Some of the other children tried to bully Jade when she first arrived because she was so different—and different was unacceptable in the social hierarchy of the classroom. But Jade was immune to the teasing. She pretended not to notice the jokes so well that sometimes Olivia wondered if she really was oblivious to them. When someone stole one of her books, she laughed and expressed relief that now she didn’t have to do the assigned homework. When they called her names, she made fun of their nicknames and came up with better ones for them to use. Before long, half the class had a case of hero worship for her, including Olivia. She was simultaneously jealous of Jade and desperate to be her.

  Then one day, Jade was sketching the playground at recess and she noticed the book that Olivia was reading. “Is the the new Macadamia Mystery?”

  Looking up from the book she had just checked out of the library, Olivia blinked at Jade in shock, actually looking around before she responded to make sure the girl was talking to her. Unable to find her voice, she simply nodded in acknowledgment.

  “I love those books! How far are you into it? I just finished that one last night.”

  Startled that someone as disinterested in school as Jade would like to read, Olivia looked back at the pages splayed open before her to remember exactly what had just happened. “Stella and Fred just went to the abandoned paper mill to look for clues.”

  Sitting up straighter, Jade leaned forward as if to look at the page Olivia was on. “I loved that part. Have they gone inside yet?”

  Forgetting her uncertainty, Olivia got caught up in the excitement. “They’re on the stairs and Fred just caught Stella when she tripped.”

  To her surprise, Jade scowled. “Yeah. As if she needed his help.”

  Olivia had found the moment to be perfectly romantic so she was confused by Jade’s reaction.

  Scowl quickly shifting back into a grin, Jade explained, “I think Stella and Peter are a better pair.”

  “But all they do is argue all the time,” Olivia protested, scrunching up her face.

  “Exactly,” Jade said sagely. “That’s how romance works.”

  They talked about their favorite books for the rest of recess, and on the way home from school—Olivia hadn’t realized how close they lived to each other until then. Their houses were only a block apart. They liked a lot of the same books even though their reasons for liking them were often different, but Olivia loved debating the characters and plot points with Jade, and Jade seemed to enjoy discussing them with someone who took stories as seriously as she did.

  Before Olivia knew it, she had made her first friend. They began sitting together at lunch and exchanging books at recess. She would give feedback on Jade’s latest art project and they even started making a story together, Olivia writing and Jade making the companion illustrations. The other kids stopped bullying them her over time, and while Olivia never became one of the popular kids, she stopped worrying so much about what all of them thought. She began speaking up in class again and Jade would make fun of the kids who made fun of her in exchange for help on her homework from Olivia.

  School became a place of enjoyment again for Olivia, and she realized that it was more fun to be behind the scenes to be the center of attention. With Jade around she was always in her shadow, but she found she didn't mind so much. Jade relied on her knowledge and trusted her judgment and that was enough. And when their classmates were focused on Jade then they had less attention for Olivia and all of the awkward little mistakes she made on a daily basis.