LITMIR.BIZ

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      At home, I was mocked. I was made fun of. But here, I was ignored. I was invisible.

      This was worse.

      No one spoke to me the whole day until, on the bus ride home, a girl sat down in the seat in front of me. I was watching the window, the gray sameness of the landscape, when her head popped up above the seat. “You must be completely new,” she said.

      I glanced up. Was she actually speaking to me? The girl had long blond hair in waves, and severe features. Her eyebrows were black, a shocking contrast to her hair. She was not smiling.

      I cleared my throat. “I got here yesterday.”

      “I figured. Completely green. So, why are you here?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “What happened to get you sent here? What did you do?”

      I studied the girl. “What did you do?”

      She smiled. “My mother was otherwise occupied. She was working, couldn’t be bothered. And then, well, I went somewhere I wasn’t supposed to go, didn’t I.”

      I smiled. “Me too. Something like that, anyway. I’m Esmé Wong.”

      “Strange name,” the girl said.

      “What’s yours?”

      “Clara Blue.”

      That name wasn’t exactly normal, I thought.

      All around us on the bus, kids laughed and messed around, trying to shove each other off the seats. But Clara Blue studied me, serious and calm. The bus plowed over a bump in the road, and she barely moved. “Well, you’re obvious, Esmé Wong,” she said. “You need to work on that. I’ll help you, don’t worry.” Then she turned back around.

      I couldn’t stop smiling. I had made a friend, one friend. My stop was next and when I passed Clara’s seat, I paused to say goodbye to the girl, but her seat was empty. The bus driver was about to close the doors so I hurried down the aisle and exited. With a jerk, the bus pulled away. Something made me turn to look at it.

      Clara’s face peered at me from the window, round as the moon.

      It got hot in the afternoon. By the time I reached the top of the hill, my T-shirt clung to me and I had taken off my hoodie. Grandma’s station wagon was gone, and the house was blissfully empty. I went into the kitchen to look for something to eat, chasing away the cats who perched on the counter, hissing at me. I checked my phone. A message from the Firecracker. I called her back.

      “Where are you?” she asked.

      “Wellstone,” I said. “Grandma’s creepy old house.”

      “Well, she called me this morning. At work. She said you never showed.”

      “I’m here,” I said. “I went to that stupid school today. I rode the stupid bus. Grandma’s mad at me for something. Or maybe she needs her bifocals changed.”

      “Esmé,” my sister said. “What’s going on? Are you at Grandma’s or aren’t you?”

      “I’m here. And it sucks. So when are you going to end this, and bring me home?”

      “No,” she said. “You’re staying. You two have to work it out. You and Grandma have to talk. It’s better for you to be there.”

      I hung up the phone, and drank a glass of water from the tap. It tasted funny, like copper. I looked around. The kitchen was dark and cluttered. A fireplace in the corner. On each of the ceiling beams hung a cluster of drying flowers or herbs. At the back of the kitchen was a door that led to nowhere, three feet of empty space outside where steps should have been, but were never built.

      The house was full of little things like that, half-finished rooms, stairs that led up into ceilings. That door in the kitchen was always locked, I remembered, to keep someone from falling. I glanced out the window over the sink, where the pond sparkled in the sun.

      In one of my suitcases, I found a swimsuit. Under the porch, I found a blue plastic raft. Barefoot, I walked down to the pond, and set the raft in the water. It floated. I hesitated for only a moment, then I got on.

      I drifted toward the center of the pond, which was small, probably used to water cows. I thought I remembered cows, though there was no sign of them now. On the other side of the pond was a fenced-in pasture, overgrown with weeds, then hill after hill of trees. The ones closest to the pond were birches, white bark reflecting the sun. Cattails grew at the pond’s edge, gummed in mud.

      I closed my eyes. The sun felt good on my face. I wished I had thought to bring a book. I floated for a while, listening to the birds. I almost fell asleep. Then I heard a voice.

      “You shouldn’t be in there.”

      I opened my eyes and sat up.

      A boy stood on the opposite bank of the pond by the cattails. He was tall. He had black hair, and the bluest eyes I had ever seen, blue as pool water, blue as broken glass. He was staring at me. “Someone drowned in there,” he said.

      “What? Here?” I tried to pull my suit down. I felt cold and exposed.

      “That pond. It’s unlucky.”

      “I can swim.”

      “I’m sure you can. Only I’m not sure it’ll matter.”

      “Oh,” I said. I wished I had a towel, something with which to cover myself. I slid off the raft, intending to stand in the water.

      But the water was deeper than I expected, and I didn’t touch bottom. I slipped, muddy water splashing up to my neck, into my mouth. I reached for the raft, but the raft danced away.

      I felt arms beneath me, hands grasping my shoulders. The boy carried me to the bank by the birches. He tried to lay me on the ground, but I scrambled up.

      “I can stand,” I said. “I’m fine.”

      The boy wore long shorts, cut ragged at the knees, a button-down shirt, and no shoes. All his clothes were soaking now.

      “Thanks,” I said. “I guess the water was deeper than I thought.”

      “Told you,” he said. “Unlucky.” He put his hands in his pockets and turned.

      He was actually going to leave. Just carry me out of a cow pond and leave.

      I called to the boy. “Wait. Who drowned here?”

      “A man. A man at a party. A long time ago.”

      “How do you know?”

      “I’m your neighbor, Tom Griffin. And you’re Esmé, I know.” He ducked under the fence, cutting through the pasture. “Clara told me all about you. She tells me everything.” He grinned at me, then was gone behind a birch.

      I stared after him, waiting for him to reappear on the other side of the tree, but he didn’t. I ran through the moment in my head. He was my neighbor, had maybe saved me from drowning, had the bluest eyes I thought I had ever seen.

      And he had a girlfriend.

      I saw Tom the next day in school.

      Or rather: he saw me, which was significant because no one noticed me, not all day. My grandmother was asleep when I left. The bus doors nearly closed on my back. My teachers ignored me, and nobody talked to me—at least nobody tried to sit on me again either—until lunchtime. As I scanned the crowded room, holding my sack lunch, an apple rolled across the cafeteria to rest against my foot.

      I bent and picked it up. It was a green apple, sour, the kind I liked best. I looked up. Tom stood on the other side of the cafeteria by the windows. I paused for a moment, then took my lunch and went over to him.

      “Come sit at our table,” he said.

      “I didn’t know you went to this school.

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