Gabby looked from me to the teacher, her face twisted like she couldn’t decide if she should laugh or scowl. “Is that a real number?”
“Yes.”
“What comes next?” My mind was spinning with excitement.
“A trillion.”
Gabby seemed over the thrill of counting to infinity. She took my hand and dragged me toward a swing set.
The teacher stood up and watched us leave. “Hey, kid,” she called after me. “How old are you?”
I raised one hand in the air and waggled my five fingers. “I’m this many.”
From that very first day on the playground, Gabby was my best friend. She rarely understood the wanderings of my mind, but she never made fun of me like the other kids did. Instead, it became her personal mission to make sure I had a childhood.
Arden moved to our school at the beginning of first grade. She had her nose permanently stuck in a book and was the only six year old in town obsessed with
The Chronicles of Narnia
. Arden needed Gabby as much as I did, and our twosome quickly turned into a threesome.
None of us was exactly
normal.
I traveled to Washington, DC, for a national math competition in junior high — and won. Arden developed an unhealthy obsession for books about vampires. And Gabby made it her mission to expose us to less academic pursuits — even if she rarely succeeded.
Now I was being pushed from the nest. Gabby believed in me. She thought I could do it. I could be a regular teenager. I wanted to believe her, but my chest felt tight and my head filled with numbers.
I
gave Arden and Gabby each a final hug goodbye and climbed into the moving truck. My mom patted my knee and gave me a sympathetic smile. Then she put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb. I watched my best friends slowly disappear in the side-view mirror. We were really doing it. We were really moving to Oregon. As we pulled onto I-5, I stared out the window and watched my world drift farther and farther into the distance. “Mom, what am I going to do about school in Portland? I mean, what classes am I gonna have to take?”
“She speaks. Does this mean I’m forgiven?” Her voice was high and light, like dragging me a thousand miles from my friends was nothing.
I was still pissed that she hadn’t let me stay with Arden, but there was nothing I could do about it. “No, but since you insist on dragging me to the land of rainclouds, I guess we can talk about school.”
She sighed and answered in a more even voice. “You’re enrolled at Kennedy High School in Portland. Your guidance counselor from Washington High already sent them all your transcripts and explained your academic needs.”
“My academic needs?” That was a loaded phrase if I’d ever heard one. In San Diego, I’d been tested and tracked ad nauseam. I liked Gabby’s plan to try for normal, but if I had
academic needs,
maybe that wouldn’t even be possible. Apparently, I’d already been cast as the dyslexic math genius at Kennedy High.
My mom shifted her attention away from the road long enough to roll her eyes at me. “Sam, you’re a smart kid. What did you want me to do, enroll you in geometry? Introductory biology? Maybe a study hall?”
Geometry, I guessed that was what most sophomores took. In San Diego, I’d been in calculus. “So the people at Kennedy know all about me?”
“They’re excited to have you.” My mom regarded me like I was a prize racehorse or something. “They’re transferring all your classes perfectly. I think your new principal’s words were, ‘Meeting Sam will help Kennedy’s top students expand their understanding of the world.’”
Great, I was an example before I even got there. Passing for normal was definitely out.
“You didn’t happen to learn from this overenthused new principal what textbooks I’d be using, did you?”
“You’ve got different texts for calculus, physics, and art history. In English you’ll be reading novels. And I’m not sure what will happen with your Spanish textbook, but history and chemistry both use the same books you had in San Diego.”
We’d basically covered the school topic, at least to the point I wanted to cover it. And I couldn’t bring myself to talk to my mom about anything more personal. Still, I didn’t want to spend a thousand-mile road trip stewing in my own misery either. I fished in my backpack between my feet and pulled out an MP3 player. I scrolled through the index and pulled up the next chapter in my history textbook, then plugged it into the stereo jack in the dashboard. “You’ve got a thousand miles of driving ahead of you. Do you want to learn about the Civil War in the process?”
My mom took her eyes off the road for a second to study me. I hadn’t forgiven her, but she smiled anyway, like everything was suddenly okay. “A history lesson sounds great.”
My stomach flip-flopped as I walked into Kennedy High. In San Diego the school had been open, with lots of portable buildings and outside corridors. Portland was gray and rainy, and the fully enclosed brick building they called a high school had matching gray industrial carpeting.
I found my first-period class — AP US History — and slumped into a seat in the back row. Thanks to Mom’s and my listening marathon in the moving truck, I was good to go all the way up to the Wilson Administration. When Ms. Johnson started lecturing on the Reconstruction Era, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I was four chapters ahead of the syllabus. Maybe passing my classes wouldn’t be completely impossible. I spent the period stressing about my lack of a social life instead.
I’d never been even remotely popular. Gabby and Arden accepted me, but nobody else in San Diego had. I wondered if I’d make any friends at all here. I couldn’t imagine who would want to be friends with me. I wasn’t a jock or a musician. Mom’s eighteen months of unemployment meant I didn’t have the most fashionable clothes. I was a world-class math nerd, but I seriously doubted advertising that would help me make friends.
Next up was AP Calculus. I didn’t want to run out and captain the mathletes again, but I still loved the consistency of numbers. Instead of paying attention to the lecture, I spent the hour studying the other kids. There were forty-two students in the room — quite a crowd. Either Kennedy High had an exceptional math program or there was only one unit of calc. I recognized a lot of people from my history class, and a few even nodded at me, but nobody said anything. They were all too busy taking notes — like math lectures were something to actually listen to.
When I walked into AP Physics, I vowed to put an end to my mute status. This class was a lot smaller than calc, only nineteen students, and by now all the faces looked familiar. Having the same students in all my classes had to be a good thing. These kids were all smart. They’d want to be my friends, right?
Students leaned against black lab tables, talking and scribbling in notebooks. A handful of geeky-looking guys clustered near the door discussing Fortran. I slid past them and headed for a girl sitting alone at one of the lab tables. She wore tattered jeans and a bright orange T-shirt that said
KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD.
Blond hair streaked with blue hung over her face, which was buried in a book with a planetary scene on the cover. In normal situations, blue hair would have intimidated the crap out of me, but she was one of only four girls in AP Physics, and she was reading science fiction. How bad could she be?
“Hi.” My voice caught in my throat, but I pushed past it. “Can I sit here?”
She pulled her backpack off the table, dropping it onto the floor. “Sure.” She tossed her paperback down next to her bag and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her bright blue eyes. The only makeup she had on was dark eyeliner, and I noticed a small silver ring that pierced her left eyebrow.
I slid onto the empty stool. My stomach twisted, and I wondered if I should have introduced myself to the Fortran boys instead. I knew a little C++. Maybe they’d accept me.
“I’m Lissa, by the way,” she said.
“Sam.”
“So, Sam, where are you from?” Her question was casual, like us talking was totally normal. It somehow made me feel even more nervous.
“Um, San Diego.”
“God, that’s gotta suck moving here, leaving seventy-degree Februaries for Portland’s beautiful liquid sunshine.”
I shrugged, not knowing what else to say. Moving to Portland did suck, but the weather wasn’t the problem. The problem was that my best friends were both back in San Diego, and the only person I’d talked to in this town had blue hair and facial jewelry.
The teacher walked into the room and started sorting through a stack of papers on his desk. “You’ll love Mr. Maxwell,” Lissa said. “He’s a riot. Check out what he’s wearing.”
I saw that Mr. Maxwell wore tan pants and a green button-down shirt. What was interesting about that?
“He wears that every single day. He has like a dozen of the same outfit. Well, he actually has a blue short-sleeved shirt too. When he changes from the long-sleeved green to the short-sleeved blue in the spring, it’s a huge deal.”
I let myself begin to relax. “A meticulous physics teacher seems appropriate.”
Lissa smiled. But then Mr. Maxwell started lecturing, and she never got a chance to say anything back. Listening to a lecture on kinetics grounded me. I scribbled force diagrams in my notebook and felt the most comfortable I’d been since moving to Oregon.
When class ended, Lissa jerked her chin toward the rest of the class. “So are you going to follow the herd to AP French now?”
“No, I actually have Spanish next period.”
She stood up and slung her backpack over one shoulder. “Well, all the foreign language classes are in the same hall, so I’ll walk you partway.”
“Thanks.” I followed Lissa out into the hall. Had I just made a friend? Would survival at this school really be that easy?
I’d gotten used to having familiar faces in all my classes, so when I walked into Beginning Spanish, things looked very different. The room was full of freshmen. I found an empty chair near the window and stared out at Portland’s endless rain.
Kennedy High was on the western edge of the downtown area. Portland was a decent enough city. It was smaller than San Diego, but had some cool architecture. My mom was already going nuts over all the
green
buildings, but I couldn’t see any of those out my classroom window. All I could see was a soggy soccer field, and a backdrop of hills covered with fancy houses that cost way more than my mom and I could afford.
“
Hola, te llamas Samantha, ¿no?
”
Surprised to hear my own name, I spun around and found myself facing a tall guy with black hair several months past its need for a haircut. This guy was definitely older than fourteen. Hadn’t he been sitting three seats over from me in calc? “
Sí, me llamo Sam.
”
“
Agradable encontrarte. Me llamo Nacho.
” His long bangs hung over the frames of thick black horn-rimmed glasses. I would have said he looked emo, but his jeans fit properly and his faded black hoodie could pass as baggy, so he may have just been sloppy. Whatever you wanted to call him, he was definitely cute.
“Nacho, like the food?”
The guy pushed his bangs out of his eyes. He had dark, chocolate-brown eyes and the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a guy. Did emo boys wear mascara? He was eyeliner-free, so he was probably just naturally gorgeous. He had super-straight teeth too, which he was showing off in the form of an adorable smile. “Outside of this class, people call me Nate.”
I nodded. I’d never really understood why Spanish teachers make you pick a Spanish name, but at least Nate had picked a tasty title for himself. It was my first day in this town, and I was already crushing on a snack food.
“So what other language do you speak?” he asked me.
“Weren’t we just speaking Spanish?”
Nate laughed. “No, I mean why am I no longer the only senior taking Spanish for toddlers? I took AP French last year and decided to go for Spanish next. What’s your story? Were you taking Swahili or something at your old school and they don’t offer that here?”
I blushed. How could I explain why I put off taking a foreign language until the last possible second without revealing what a freak show I really was? “Sorry, Nate, you’re still the only senior in the class. I’m a sophomore.”
This caught him off guard. Then Señor Gonzales started babbling about the present perfect tense, and Nate didn’t have a chance to rebut.
His question was valid. Nobody took AP Calculus and Beginning Spanish at the same time. People took Spanish 1 when they took algebra. Was my passing algebra in fourth grade a good thing or a bad thing? I didn’t understand a single thing Señor Gonzales said the entire period — that was definitely a bad thing.
My foreign language selection had been strategic. Gabby’s family was from Honduras, and even if I was far from fluent, growing up in Southern California and keeping my ears open had taught me enough to stumble through a conversation with Gabby’s grandmother. But Señor Gonzales wasn’t speaking in Spanish. He was talking about tenses and verb conjugations, and none of it made any sense at all.
I doodled random shapes in my notebook as I wished I could take notes like all the other kids in the class. I wished I’d be able to read them later. Not being able to read sucked. My entire life sucked. I blamed my mom for making me move here. Back in San Diego, I had the advantage of being able to con Gabby into doing all my homework for me. There was no way I’d be able to pass this class without her help.
Nate interrupted my pity party as soon as Señor Gonzales stopped his stream of gibberish. “Taking three AP classes as a sophomore is almost enough for me to forgive you for only speaking one language.”
I knew Nate was in my calc class, and he might have been in my history class, but he definitely wasn’t in physics with me. How did he know my entire morning schedule? Had other people noticed me? Maybe making friends wouldn’t be completely impossible in this town. “It’s five actually. I have AP Chemistry and AP Art History this afternoon.”
Nate’s smile looked kind of like a smirk, and his eyes were not on my face. Was he checking me out? “Damn, girl. You sure you’re only a sophomore?”