LITMIR.BIZ

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must be thinking in that moment: The freak show has rolled into town.

      Difference was, Kris seemed to embrace his divergence, whereas I was standing there in my all-black-everything puddle of shame, laboring to disappear even as I tried to catch Audrey’s eye. She could not have noticed me less. Maybe I should have worn neon-yellow jeggings.

      “Now Kim, you’ve recently moved here from Maine, where you went to a small Quaker school. Fascinating,” Mr. Crowell read from his clipboard, chewing over the “fascinating” way too conspicuously, like I was his own personal science project. “And Kris, Kris with a k, not a c, you’re here, looks like you were homeschooled before coming to Central. Well, this will be a real departure from that, but in a good way, I’m sure.”

      Kris raised his eyebrows theatrically, like, Really, bitch? but I could tell he wasn’t about to get into it in front of the rest of the zoo animals, who don’t even know they live in a zoo.

      Kris and I found empty seats, which turned out to be next to each other in the back row. As we passed Chloe, she couldn’t resist shaking her head disgustedly, and her minions giggled a little, as they do.

      “Girl’s eyebrow game needs some surreous werrrk,” Kris whispered to me as we sat down, nodding in Chloe’s direction. He wasn’t wrong. She looked like she’d overplucked them, then drawn a thin line back in with black pencil. She resembled a spooky puppet from a horror movie, the kind that sits up by itself once the lights go dim and cranks its neck to glower at its next victim, which, not for nothing, was exactly what Chloe and the Chloettes were giving me in that instant: horror-clown death-stare realness. Like their very proximity to somebody like me might damage their popularity stock—not to mention their sexy Q rating.

      Audrey wasn’t glaring, of course. But she had changed. She’d let her edgy short hair grow out into a bob, and she had highlighted blond streaks throughout. She was wearing a version of what all the Chloettes were dressed in—tight jeans, a boxy top that managed to be oversized and still show slices of midriff, and pricey sneakers or Tims. I remembered DJ last year making fun of rich white girls who wore Tims to “be street.” The Audrey I’d known would never have cared about fitting in with Chloe, let alone dressing like her, but then again, the Audrey I’d known was probably so irrevocably damaged by her “Miss Independent” experiments with Oryon/Drew that she’d started to see the upside in conformity.

      She still looked pretty.

      At lunch I ended up sitting with Kris. Well, he sat with me. Which I guess if I’m being truthful, I wasn’t thrilled about at first. Not because Kris wasn’t potentially awesome. But because the last thing Kim Cruz needs is the outest pal in the history of gay. If I was trying to skate by in the shadows for my junior year, having Kris shine his blinding Yaaas, queen light in my direction wasn’t much going to help my plan.

      “The band break up?” he asked, as he slid next to me and began meticulously unwrapping his meal of Greek yogurt and a starlight mint.

      “Pardon?”

      He tilted a shoulder toward my black ensemble. “The mourning attire.”

      “Ah. Yeah. No. I’m in mourning for different reasons.”

      “No doubt. Like, this whole life, right?” Kris waved his hands as if presenting the entire cafeteria on a platter. “Please welcome to the stage . . . the worst of humanity.”

      Just then a disquieting cackle emanated from Chloe’s table, and I reflexively turned in their direction . . . And, WTF? Audrey was sitting with them, the whole gaggle shrilly erupting at G knows what. I didn’t see that one coming.

      “The best part of homeschooling?” Kris started, cutting his eyes toward the Chloettes. “No bitch squad.”

      I laughed, but felt a knee-jerk reflex to defend Audrey. “They can’t all be bad,” I said weakly, to which Kris responded by cocking his head and making googly eyes.

      “Stay tuned,” he warned. “This ain’t no Quaker-honor-your-feelings school. Those girls are sharks. And you, my dear, are the seal. Hope you’re a fast swimmer.” Kris took two spoonfuls of his yogurt, then wrapped it back up, shoving it deep into his lunch bag and tossing the whole wad into the trash. He stood up, fixed his hair, and popped the mint in his mouth, cracking it between his back teeth. “See you around, K.”

      “Yeah, you too, K.”

      “Ha! One more K and we got ourselves a reality show.”

      “Or an abominable racist social club,” I deadpanned.

      “Or both!” Kris added, laughing as he walked away, stomping so the buckles on his sneakers jangled loudly enough for people to notice. I watched him as he passed my lunch table from last year. You know, the unofficial a.k.a. official “black table.”

      DJ was at the head, cutting up with some of the guys, looking handsome and confident as ever. Maybe a little more muscular, an inch taller. I repressed the urge to wave hello to him, though knowing him, he’d probably just wave back if he’d actually caught the awkward new girl waving at him like old friends.

      “Fly wheels,” DJ said over a shoulder to Kris as he sashayed by. Without even a trace of sarcasm or animosity in his tone.

      * * *

      Later, at home on Skype, I ask Destiny if I’m the seal.

      “The what?”

      “The seal. The sad, pathetic creature whose fate is to be bait for more majestic animals with better skin and tighter abs and rows and rows of razor-sharp white teefs.”

      “Oh that. Definitely,” she snarks. “Where is this coming from?”

      “The mirror.”

      “Girl, enough. I can’t do a whole year of you hating yourself because you don’t look like one of Taylor Swift’s ponytail posse.”

      “Easy for you to say. You’re breathtaking.”

      “Okay. Maybe. But then what?”

      “Who cares?”

      “Kim, you know better than that. Besides, being hot can be a liability too,” she says, sitting back on a fluffy pillow. “Everybody wants my attention, but they don’t really want much else. I’ve become one-dimensional. A conduit for them to feel something about themselves, not about me.”

      “High-class problems,” I say.

      “I’m serious.”

      “You’ve determined all this in a mere forty-eight hours?”

      “I’m a good little Changer, with one more V under my belt than you, not for nothing. And yes. It ain’t that complex math.”

      “Well, here on the other side of the equal symbol, it doesn’t feel so simple.”

      “I know, it sucks. But it could be so much worse. I mean, we almost didn’t make it—”

      “Okay okay!” I interrupt, not wanting to be reminded of the Tribulations, and Chase, and Alex, and those less fortunate than us. All of which I’ve managed to replace with the new Tribulations, a.k.a. being Kim Cruz.

      “Oh, and another thing: my teachers assume I’m dumb,” she says.

      “There is no way you read as dumb. You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

      “Trust me. When even adults are thrown by the way you look, it leads to all kinds of compensatory behaviors.”

      “That’s grody.”

      “To the max.”

      “Still beats being the seal.”

      At that, Destiny claps her hands together like flippers and honks, her mouth yawning open and shut as if catching sardines.

      “You even look sexy doing that,” I grouse.

      “It’s

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