“Cool?” shouted out a girl. “We’re frozen.”
“What’s our school mascot?” called out a kid. “Polar bears? Arctic wolves?”
Someone howled like a wolf, and everyone laughed.
Izzy felt sorry for Mr. Delmonico. He seemed like a nice guy. He was new at Atom Middle School, just like all the sixth graders were. And it wasn’t his fault the school was too cold for comfort.
Mr. Delmonico waited for the laugher to subside. Then he said patiently, “No. Our teams are the Atomics. Speaking of, teams and clubs will have sign-up sheets at tables in the cafeteria tomorrow at lunchtime. Check with team captains and club leaders for tryout schedules.”
“Tryouts!” Izzy whispered to Charlie, making a worried face. “So soon.”
Charlie nodded, but kept silent.
Mr. Delmonico went on. “If you want to start a club, bring a sign-up sheet to the cafeteria tomorrow. Okay, it’s time to head to your homerooms. Teachers, hold up your posters. Students, go stand by the teacher whose poster has the first letter of your last name on it.”
The auditorium erupted in chaos as 300 students jumped up from their seats and stampeded toward the teachers. Mr. Delmonico shouted, “Walk, please!” But no one did. Allie and Charlie waved to Izzy as they headed off in one direction toward the teacher holding the D-E-F poster and Izzy headed in the other direction toward the teacher with the N-O-P poster. Allie pointed to herself and Charlie, and then to Izzy, and mimed eating, which Izzy interpreted to mean: See you at lunch. Izzy nodded vigorously to show her agreement. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw both Marie and the new girl heading toward the teacher with the A-B-C poster. Their heads were bent close together, and they were laughing and talking to one another as if, thought Izzy with a small silent sigh, they were the only two girls in the world.
Izzy felt dizzy.
When her homeroom teacher handed out their schedules, Izzy saw that classes were on a block schedule. That meant that some classes met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and others met Tuesday and Thursday—unless it was a half day, in which case all bets were off and for some reason the Monday schedule went into effect but classes met for only 20 minutes each. Also, students were assigned to something called electives, which was weird because no one elected what elective to take. The electives had names like “Humanities,” “Creative Expression,” and “Art History.” Izzy was happy to see that she had been assigned to an elective called “Forensics” that met Tuesdays and Thursdays. Forensics sounded right up her alley: She loved the idea of using the scientific method to solve crimes. She knew that’s what Forensics meant because she’d seen lots of TV shows about it.
When homeroom was over, Izzy braced herself, hunched her shoulders, and burrowed her way through the crowded hallway, afraid she’d be late for her first class, which was Math. But when she arrived at the classroom, she saw that the teacher wasn’t there yet. Izzy was glad to see Allie in the classroom. There was no seat open near Allie, and as Izzy hesitated by the door, a gangly boy smiled at her and pointed to the empty seat in front of him.
“Here’s a seat,” he said.
“Thanks,” said Izzy.
As she sat, the boy said, “I’m Trevor. I just moved here, and—”
But just then, Allie shouted, “Izzy! Watch this!”
Allie stood up in front of her desk. “It’s COLD in here!” she said. Her big eyes sparkled and her zingy hair bounced. Allie flung one arm wide and pretended that her thermos was a microphone that she held in front of her mouth. At top volume, she began singing the song from the movie Frozen except she changed the words to “Let it snow, let it snow…” And then Allie tossed a handful of white paper torn into confetti over her head so that it snowed down on her.
Oh, Allie! Izzy squirmed with embarrassment. This wasn’t the first time Izzy wished that Allie wasn’t an aspiring stand-up comedian. Izzy was relieved when everyone clapped, stamped, and cheered. A boy had started to sing the old song “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” when the teacher, Ms. Tattinger, walked in.
Luckily, Ms. Tattinger had a sense of humor. “It is awfully cold outside and also in this building,” she said. “But not quite cold enough to snow, outside or inside. Anyway, we’re here to do math. Pick up the confetti paper, and let’s begin.”
As Ms. Tattinger wrote math problems on the board, Izzy felt a wonderful sense of calm come over her. Math was neat and tidy. It made sense. It wasn’t about messy stuff like hurt feelings and old friendships. Izzy might not solve the math problems as fast as Allie did, and she was way, way too shy to shout out the answers like Allie did, but she was sure of what she was doing, and she loved the quiet satisfaction of finding the correct solution. When Ms. Tattinger called on Izzy to solve an especially tricky problem and Izzy was able to find the right answer, Trevor leaned forward and whispered, “Nice.”
Izzy looked down shyly, but she grinned happily, too!
* * *
On the way to lunch, the halls were even more crowded than before because mechanics had set up ladders at various places in the corridors. They were inspecting the overhead ducts, the wall vents, and the pipes that ran under the floors. Students whistled “Jingle Bells” and chanted “Snow day! Snow day!” as they slalomed their way around the construction.
“The whole cafeteria is as cold as a refrigerator,” joked Izzy as she, Charlie, and Allie sat down at a table together. “I don’t know why they bother keeping the milk in a cooler. They should just keep a cow outside in the parking lot, or in here. I mean, look around. Everyone’s so frostbitten that they look like they’re on a field trip to an ice floe in Antarctica.”
“I don’t know why they can’t figure out what’s wrong with the heating in this place,” said Allie, waving her sandwich around so that the tomatoes slipped out. “Why is it such a mystery?”
“That’s not the only mystery,” said Charlie, who was unpacking her lunch from a grocery bag. She rolled her eyes right, to draw Izzy’s and Allie’s attention to where Marie and the new girl sat huddled together at a table far away.
“Humpf,” scoffed Allie, her mouth full of sandwich. “Didn’t I tell you guys this yesterday? To Marie, we’re nothing. She made that crystal clear at the assembly this morning! Mystery, shmyshtery.”
“Hey!” said Izzy, “speaking of mysteries, guess what? I really lucked out with my English elective. I got Forensics. I’m going to be just like all those crime-solving detectives on TV!”
“Uh-oh,” said Allie. Now her face looked tragic.
“Uh-oh what?” asked Izzy.
“Oh, Izzy,” said Charlie sadly, “I hate to be the one to tell you this. But, well, in the case of the English elective, ‘forensics’ means making speeches and debating.”
“Not collecting hairs and fingernails and doing DNA tests,” added Allie.
“What?” gasped Izzy. There was nothing in the world she was more afraid of than standing up in front of people and making a speech! “How can I get out of that class?”
“I don’t think you can,” said Charlie. “It would throw off your whole schedule.”