The next morning four school buses are parked outside of school. On the side of each bus is a colored piece of paper—green, blue, purple, and red. I have no idea what the colors mean until I get to homeroom, where Mr. Turner passes out sealed envelopes with our names written on the front. “Inside each envelope is a color,” he explains. “When it’s time to leave, you will get on the bus that matches your color.”

“This is totally sketchy,” says Sophie as she waves her envelope in the air. “You’re not going to, like, kidnap us or anything, are you?”

“No, Sophie,” says Mr. Turner. “We’re not going to, like, kidnap you.” Mr. Turner doesn’t usually talk this way. I think it’s because Sophie’s wearing her STAY AWAY FROM US shirt and there’s not a thing Mr. Turner can do about it.

“I agree with Sophie,” says Amelia. “There’s a total creep factor happening here.”

“You know we live on an island, right?” says Gavin. “It’s not like we can go very far.”

“Duh,” says Amelia. “But that doesn’t mean this whole mystery color thing isn’t sketchy.”

“What’s sketchy is your logic,” says Gavin.

“Enough!” says Mr. Turner, banging a flat hand on his desk. “Enough from all of you. Today is about community building. It’s not about where you’re going or who you’re going with. We’re coming together to do some good. We will learn to—”

Mr. Turner stops talking mid-sentence. I feel badly for him, but only just a little. I don’t know why the teachers think this day is going to help. Getting on a bus and leaving school isn’t going to change who anyone is or how they act. If anything, it’s going to make everyone act more like who they really are.

The popular girls will squeeze together in a single row of seats. With their power condensed and the barriers of the seat protecting them, they’ll act like no one can hear the mean things they whisper. Only that’s not true at all. Because as soon as the bus starts moving, they’ll start talking louder and louder until everyone around them can hear. That’s the whole point. The boys in the back will lean over their seats and yell out the windows. And me, I’ll sit somewhere near the middle, pretending that I belong where I am, even though I have no idea where I belong at all.

I get the color blue, which is the last bus in the line. Even though I’m not sure it’s the right decision, I board the bus as soon as I can. I think about waiting and getting on last, because then I wouldn’t have to choose where to sit. Or at least, I wouldn’t have so many choices. But it’s just as bad to stand outside the bus acting like you’re waiting for someone as it is to be inside the bus pretending someone is looking for you.

I pick a seat by the window, so I can see what buses other kids are getting on. Sophie’s holding a red piece of paper and Amelia’s holding a green piece of paper. They hug good-bye and wipe fake tears from their eyes. Molly has a blue piece of paper, but she doesn’t hug anyone. Then Jack walks out of school. After morning assembly yesterday I didn’t see him at all, even though I kept looking. As the day went on, I thought of more and more questions. Like how’d he make that chain? What is dumpster diving? Where did he come from? And why did he choose to talk to me?

Jack’s wearing his same black T-shirt. Chains are hanging from his pocket.

He’s holding a blue piece of paper. He walks straight onto my bus.

“Taken?” he asks, looking at the empty seat next to me.

I shake my head.

“Dope,” he says, and plops down.

The bus pulls out of the school parking lot with a loud screech. As we turn a corner, I have to hold on to the seat in front of me with both hands so that I don’t lean into Jack. But I do glance down to get a better look at the chains attached to his jeans. They seem a little bigger today, like there’s one more strand.

“Did you add more?” I say.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “I had a great dive yesterday. Look, I found this.” He points to a blue tab in the center of the new strand. It’s attached to the other tabs by an unwound paper clip on one end and a group of staples on the other end. “You can only get the blue ones from certain beer cans. Some PBRs. Vintage Budweisers. I guess that’s how the people roll on this island, because I found a bunch of these down by the harbor.”

“So you mean you actually dive into dumpsters? Like trash dumpsters?” I sniff the air between us. I can’t help it; just talking about diving into a trash dumpster makes me think that Jack should smell really bad. But he doesn’t. I don’t smell anything other than the normal school bus smell of rotting fruit and plastic.

Jack smiles. “I mean, you don’t really dive. Not like headfirst. More like you scrounge. You keep your eyes open. Always looking. And if that means sticking your hand into a few trash cans, then yeah. That’s what you do.”

“How’d you learn to do it?” I ask.

Jack adjusts the chain against his pocket. “It’s not the kind of thing you have to learn. It’s not like they have dumpster-diving classes after school. You just start doing it. Like when I was little, I’d have to hang around my mom’s office for hours. I got bored and I just started taking things, mostly from the supply closet, but sometimes from trash cans. Paper clips, pen caps, tape—the kind of stuff that no one notices. I started to string them together. Then it just grew from there. It’s insane what people throw away. I’ve lived all over the world and it’s always the same deal. Trash, trash, trash. No wonder the planet is literally melting. Why, you want to give it a try someday?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I kinda do. There’s this show I like called Create You where the contestants have to make clothes. There’s a girl named Paris who always adds metal to her designs. That’s totally the kind of thing she would do on the show.”

“Dumpster dive? For real? I’ve got to check that out. What channel is it on?”

“Oh,” I say. “Um, I don’t know. I watch it with a friend while we work at this store called Sal’s. My friend brings his laptop. But I don’t think they would actually dumpster dive on the show. I don’t know why I said that.” My cheeks get red. I shift in the seat. I need to change the subject before Jack catches on that my friend is a grown-up and that neither of us actually work when I’m at Sal’s. “I want to be a fashion designer when I’m older, so . . .”

The words come out of my mouth as easily as if I’d said my name is Cove and I live on Martha’s Vineyard. But I’m not sure the words are even true. I mean, I want to get on Create You. I need to get on Create You. But what I want to be when I’m older, I have no idea.

I look down at the dirty bus floor that is marked with footprints and scraps of paper. I can’t imagine what Jack is thinking. Jack who has lived all over the world. Jack who makes cool metal chains out of trash and loops them onto his jeans. Jack who says, “Yeah, I could see you being that. Maybe I could watch the show with you and your friend someday.”