“Well, but I am a nerd, though,” Max said. “And so is Jared.”
“Jared who?” I asked.
“Whitman. He’s new, and he’s in orchestra. And taking Latin.”
“Ah, so that means there are two of you now,” Zara teased.
“Come on, Zara, we’re not the only ones taking Latin!” Max was smiling and blushing.
Huh, I thought. Max likes this new boy. As in, likes. Okay.
Oh.
“Zara, if you want to play basketball, you totally should,” Omi said. “Go ahead. We’ll cheer for you.”
“Well, thank you, Omi,” Zara said. Not even glancing at me, she marched straight toward the hoop.
“I’m playing,” she announced. “Whose team am I on?”
The basketball boys stared at her. Leo laughed.
“Who says you’re playing?” Dante asked.
“Me,” Zara said. “I do. And do I have to get Ms. Wardak over here? Because I totally will—”
“Nah.” Leo wiped his hair out of his eyes. He looked at Zara, up and down, in a way that made my stomach twist. “Anyway, you’re tall enough.”
“Of course I am! I’m five eight.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely what you are,” Dante said. “Tall. And straight, like a stick.” He held up his hand sideways.
Tobias grinned.
I tried to catch Zara’s eye, but she looked away.
And if Leo heard Dante’s comment, you couldn’t tell. He kept talking to Zara. “But there’s a problem. If you play, the teams will be uneven. So we need another girl.”
“Not me,” Omi said quickly. “I’m wearing the wrong shoes. And besides—”
“Mila,” Leo said, fixing his pale greenish eyes on me. “We want Mila to play.”
Tobias laughed. “Yeah. Mila. Even if she’s not wearing The Sweater.”
Callum didn’t say a word as he dribbled the ball. Thwump, thwump, thwump against the blacktop.
The moths were awake now, and fluttering. Like they’d seen a giant light bulb.
“Shut up, Callum,” I blurted.
He looked up, surprised. “I didn’t say anything.”
Not now. But you said something to me in the band room, didn’t you? When you knew Ms. Fender and Samira couldn’t hear it.
Zara’s eyes were darting to the boys, then to me, then to Leo. “What sweater? You mean that green one—?”
“I told you, Zara,” I said desperately. “They have this crazy idea it gave them luck—”
“Although maybe it wasn’t just The Sweater,” Tobias said.
“Yeah, Mila, let’s see if that shirt is lucky too,” Dante said. “Hug time!”
He opened his arms and took a zombie step toward me.
“Stop,” I hollered, stepping backward. “That isn’t funny, Dante!”
The boys laughed. And now some other boys were watching from a few steps behind the foul line. Hunter Schultz and three of his horrible friends.
That was when I realized that Max and Omi had slipped away.
And that Zara’s face had a hard look I’d never seen before. Directed at me.
“Well, Mila,” she said in a not-best-friendly voice. “If you don’t want to play, no one is forcing you.”
GUIDANCE
I speed-walked into the building, my chest pounding, no idea where I was even going. My friends had deserted me—why? Well, Max I could understand: he was scared of Hunter and his friends, and possibly of the basketball boys, too. And of course, when he’d offered to come with me to report them, I’d said no. Omi had followed Max off the blacktop, maybe to be loyal to Max, maybe to avoid watching things get weird between Zara and me. Knowing Omi, the way she tried to avoid every conflict, it was probably a little of both, I thought.
As for Zara, I didn’t know what to think.
How come she didn’t protest when the boys started teasing me? Sure, she was nervous about the chorus thing, but she couldn’t have needed to play basketball that badly. And maybe she didn’t know the whole story—the lie about Leo’s birthday, the stuff on the bus, what happened with Callum this morning in the band room—but she’d seen a sample of it just now, happening right before her eyes, and she didn’t take my side. Or even say anything. Not even when Dante called her “straight like a stick,” which he’d obviously meant as an insult.
And why had she given me that strange look? Could she be jealous?
But of what? The boys’ attention—including Leo’s—was the opposite of flattering. I couldn’t understand how Zara didn’t see that, or get how awful this was for me.
Does she care more about Leo than about my feelings?
It was hard to believe. But also the only thing that made any sense.
I checked my phone: twenty-one minutes until band. Ms. Wardak was out on the blacktop, so she couldn’t yell at me for being in the hallway. Still, I knew I probably couldn’t just hang out here for the next twenty-one minutes without anyone noticing. Better to look as if I had a Place to Be.
I wandered down the main corridor, until I found myself in front of the door marked GUIDANCE.
Actually, that’s exactly what I do need. Guidance.
Not to tattle on anyone, like a baby. Besides, the way Zara acted just now, if I got Leo in trouble, she’d probably never speak to me again. And then neither would Omi, most likely.
But it would be good to get some advice. Also to know how to think about the last few days. The letter with my homeroom assignment had said that my guidance counselor was named Lori Maniscalco; from what I could tell at the assembly two weeks ago, when all the seventh grade counselors introduced themselves, she seemed really nice. Like you could imagine telling her things.
I walked up to a woman sitting behind a desk. She had drawn-on eyebrows and hair that sat on her head at a weird angle. I couldn’t help staring; a second too late, after she noticed I was staring, I realized it was a wig.
I read her name plaque: MS. J. KURTZBURGER.
“Hello, Ms. Kurtzburger,” I said, working hard to keep my voice steady. “My name is Mila Brennan, and I’d like to talk to Ms. Maniscalco. Please. It’s very important.”
Ms. Kurtzburger looked up from her monitor. “Oh, I’m sorry, but Ms. Maniscalco isn’t here. Haven’t you heard? She’s on maternity leave.”
She was? At the assembly, when she’d waddled up to the mic, I could see she was pregnant. But I hadn’t thought she was that pregnant.
I couldn’t help it; I burst into tears.
Ms. Kurtzburger got up from her seat and handed me a box of tissues on which someone (Ms. Kurtzburger?) had written in Sharpie: GUIDANCE. DO NOT MOVE.
She sat again and quickly typed something on her keyboard. “Hold on, Mila. Let me check something for you. Okay, we don’t have a maternity-leave replacement lined up for Ms. Maniscalco quite yet, so until we do, you can talk to Mr. Dolan.”
“Mr. Dolan? I don’t even know him!”
I knew it sounded stupid to be making this argument, because it wasn’t as if I knew Mrs. Maniscalco, either. But the truth was, if I’d known I’d be talking to Mr. Anybody, I wouldn’t have come here. I needed Ms. Maniscalco, who’d seemed so understanding and… a woman.