Chapter One

Just Another Day in Paradise

Something damp hits my bare arm seconds before I hear a gasp, followed by “DUUUUUUUUUUDE! You totally hit her! Molly Freaking Claremont! You might as well nail Principal Davis!”

Someone laughs. “Niiiiiiiice. Extra points for hitting the OG teacher’s pet!”

I glance down and, yes, there is a spitball, still clinging nicely to my arm hairs. I briefly close my eyes and swear on my favorite week-­on-­two-­pages planner that if high school isn’t better than this I will run away and homeschool myself on a deserted island, or in the back room of an old bookstore, or something. If people are still this moronic in high school I can take AP Environmental Science and calculus from a cabin in the woods, right?

I flick the spitball off my arm toward a group of girls without slowing my stride, ignoring the high-­pitched squeals that follow. The laughter kicks up and I move faster. I’m anticipating still more DNA-­covered projectiles flying through the hallway and I want no part of it.

Three more months. That’s what’s left of middle school before we are finally, completely out of here. I. Cannot. Wait.

Kait and Mik walk toward the door to the cafeteria as I get there. I make a fake-­outraged face.

“I need thoughts and prayers: there’s idiot saliva on my epidermis.” I pause, my face serious. “I fear it could be UghKevin.”

Mik freezes and his eyes go wide. “Did he lick you? Because that feels like something that shouldn’t happen in a ‘safe space’ like Shipton Middle School.” He actually makes air quotes when he says “safe space.” Mik is prone to quoting the school handbook, something that even I don’t do (in public, anyway).

Kait shudders. “Ew. It’s like going to school with a Labrador retriever!”

“No, no,” I rush to explain before strange rumors started circulating. “There was no tongue-­to-­skin contact. He—­”

“HE SPIT ON YOU?” Kait was already standing, but she manages to square up so it looks like she’s grown another two inches, which is something to see, because she already towers over most of our school. Except, of course, her younger brother, Alex, who’s an inch taller.

“Gross. No. Chill,” I say quickly before she storms off in a righteous rage. “It was a projectile. Spitball.” I consider for a second. “And now that we’ve covered licking and spitting, I got off pretty easy.”

We’re still outside the door, the smell of cafeteria food wafting toward us. I check my wrist: six minutes until we’re supposed to be in Ms. Lewiston’s Book Club, or the LBC.

“Come on, let’s grab food and get to 201,” I say, leading the way into the cafeteria. “This book is intense. I want to talk about what happened.”

The LBC meets every week in Ms. Lewiston’s room to talk books, and life, and whatever else people want to talk about. There are around ten of us who come pretty regularly, and other randoms who come and go. Ms. Lewiston is always clear that there aren’t a lot of rules—­even if you haven’t read the book, you can still come and chill. It really is Mik’s (air quotes) safe space. But my friends and I are the core Lewiston book nerds. Us three, plus Theo, Jax, and Alice, always show up.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the LBC is one hundred percent totally the best part of my week. And not just because Ms. Lewiston usually has candy.

We get in line, talking about the book we’re reading: Ghost Boys, which is about a twelve-­year-­old kid who’s shot by police when they think his toy gun is real. He narrates the book as a ghost, which is weird and sad, but also kind of cool. It’s a hard book to read in a lot of ways, but Ms. Lewiston’s always reminding us that we can always pick up or put down a book whenever we need to. She also says there’s nothing wrong with reading a Wimpy Kid or an old Calvin and Hobbes comic if things feel too intense. But I want to read Ghost Boys. As sad as some parts are, I still want to keep reading.

Kait looks like she’s braced for a punch as she approaches the hot lunch, then relaxes. “Okay. Not too bad. There’s toasty cheese bread and roasted green beans.” She and her brother are both vegetarians, which makes her even more suspicious of school food, especially since the time she wolfed down “Tuesday’s Cheesy Surprise Lasagna” only to learn the surprise was sausage. That was a bad day.

Weird but true fact that I keep to myself: I kind of love school lunch. Yes, the “salad” (and here I’m making Mik-­like air quotes with my fingers) is a few wisps of iceberg lettuce plus a sad tomato. But the chicken patties, the burgers, the stir-­fry . . . really, all of it is pretty decent. And the fact that someone else is putting protein, carbs, and (sort of) vege­tables on my plate is . . . nice. Not that I’m not fed at home, obviously. There’s no Oliver Twist situation here, where I’m holding out my bowl, hoping for a little more gruel. We have plenty of food. It’s just that for almost two years, until a few months ago, I had to order it on Insta­cart and Blue Apron with my parents’ credit card because they were totally checked out. I get it. My older brother was always sick, and then he got worse, and then he died. And life at our house went sideways for a while. That’s when I started ordering all our groceries and really appreciating school lunch.

Things are better now, but I still have a bunch of food on auto-­order. Of course, now that my parents are going to the store regularly, we sometimes wind up with uncomfortable amounts of squeezable yogurts and mini carrots. But I guess I’m not quite ready to count on them yet.

Anyway, someone serving me a meal without me having to think about it makes it one of my favorite parts of the day.

I smile at Mrs. Kokonitas (“Call me Janet, honey!”) and thank her for my chicken tenders and cheesy toast. Behind me, Mik is apparently fighting existential angst over whether he wants Tater Tots or cheesy toast.

“Buddy!” I snap my fingers in his face. “Let’s do this! Ghost Boys is waiting.”

He flinches and flings his hands up in the air. “Fine! I’ll get the tots. But maybe we can trade bites?” He directs this at Kait, since he knows I will growl at him like a dog with a favorite toy if his wandering fingers even come near my cheesy toast. I am not excellent at sharing.

Finally, we get our food in the Styrofoam takeout containers they give us when we have to eat outside the cafeteria (sorry, planet Earth), and we head toward Ms. Lewiston’s room.

“Fam! You’re here. I’m so glad to see you all,” Ms. Lewiston says, opening her arms wide as we walk in.

I don’t know how she manages to make it seem like she’s genuinely happy to be in school, but Ms. Lewiston does it. Every single day.

My shoulders drop a little once we’re all inside, the door closed, the overhead lights off, and her desk lamp and string lights casting cozy shadows around the room. It’s not like she’s holding séances or therapy sessions or anything; it’s just a classroom and a bunch of my classmates sprawled around, talking about books. But there’s a different vibe in here. Ms. Lewiston never lectures or makes us do much of anything, but the conversations in this room are different than they are anywhere else.

Ms. Lewiston grins and walks slowly around the room, pausing to put a hand on someone’s shoulder or dap them up.

“So. How’s the weather today? How’d the morning go so far?”

When Ms. Lewiston asks about the weather, she doesn’t mean outside. It’s how she asks how we’re feeling. And if the weather stays bad for a while, she might talk to us privately, checking in. A few seats over, on one of the beanbags, a girl named Ainsley shrugs and mutters something about floods and crappy weather all the way around. Ms. Lewiston’s eyebrows go up a little, and she wanders over.

“Wanna tell me more?” she asks, but Ainsley shrugs again.

Ms. Lewiston nods like this makes sense, and rests her hand on Ainsley’s head for a minute, then says quietly, “Maybe swing by during study? I’m doing a new Booktalker display. You can keep me company.”

Ainsley nods, and Ms. Lewiston keeps walking, toward me and Mik. She smiles.

“How ’bout you all?” she asks. “How are my favorite book nerds?”

Mik gives her a thumbs-­up since his mouth is full of food, and offers his hand for a fist bump.

I smile. Even though I’ve gotten really good at pretending things are fine when they’re not, in this room it’s easier to say hard things about real life, not just about books. But today is a good day. “Decently sunny skies,” I say, biting into my cheesy toast. “Forecast seems okay.”

Mik reaches over and drops a tot on my tray, a gift that I recognize as the show of generosity it is.

As Ms. Lewiston heads to her desk, I let myself relax into the beanbag. For forty minutes, at least I’m where I want to be.