The new girl blew into Room Twenty on a whoosh of air as cool as the spaces between snowflakes. She smelled a little like cats.
I noticed the smell right away because of my uncle’s cat, Francis. When we’re visiting my uncle, Francis glares at my brother and me from the bedroom doorway the whole time. That cat is always hatching an evil plot, which is why I don’t trust cats.
Mr. Allen walked over to our four-desk group and pushed an empty desk so the front of it touched the sides of mine and Nick’s. On the other side of Nick, Owen picked up two of those pink eraser caps that normal people use on the ends of their pencils and got busy. Busy sticking them in his nose, that is.
“Eeew!” Lacey squealed in my ear. “Don’t look, Nadie!” She covered her face.
I looked. It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on Owen. He hauled in a gigantic breath and snorted. The erasers shot out: thoop-thoop. He crawled under his desk after them, then put them back on his pencils. It’s also a good idea never to touch anything that belongs to Owen if you can help it.
“Fellow learners,” Mr. Allen said in his attention-please voice. “This is Summer Crawford.” He put his long arm around the new girl’s shoulders and steered her to the empty desk. “She’ll be joining our class for the rest of the year. I’m sure you will all help her feel welcome.” Mr. Allen raised one sharp, black eyebrow at Owen, then turned back to the new girl.
Owen ducked behind his desk lid. When he picked his head up for a second, I saw that the erasers were back in his nose, this time with the pencils attached. He ducked back down. There was another snort, and then thoop-ding, thoop-ding, the pencils hit the inside of his desk. It’s a good thing Owen’s desk is diagonally across from mine so I never have to look inside there.
“Owen,” Mr. Allen said. “I think—”
We never got to hear what Mr. Allen thought because right then our principal, Mrs. Winger, opened the classroom door. She motioned to Mr. Allen.
“I need to step outside with Mrs. Winger for a moment,” Mr. Allen said. “Let’s help Summer feel welcome with our excellent Room Twenty behavior.” Mr. Allen went into the hall and closed the door behind him.
The new girl bent at the waist and shimmied out of an enormously wooly sweater. Her shirt hiked up under her arms, and we all got a good look at her wide, pale back. Right in the middle was a brown beauty mark that looked like Louisiana, and bunching up from the waistband of her jeans, a shiny roll of purple underwear.
“Eww—your shirt!” squealed Lacey.
The new girl tugged her shirt back down, then flumped into her seat. The tips of her hair fluttered against her chin like dry grass. She smiled all around as if one of the most embarrassing things in the world hadn’t just happened to her.
“Hi,” she said, sticking her hand right out at Nick. “I’m Summer.”
Nick’s face filled in pink between his freckles. The room got so quiet I figured everyone had quit breathing.
Maybe they went by different rules in Summer’s last school. We sure did last year in third grade, when we were in the lower primary school, next door. But here in Upper Springville Elementary, boys and girls in the fourth grade barely talked to each other. And they definitely didn’t shake hands.
Every eye in the room was trained right on Nick. He gulped. He slouched down small in his seat. He coughed and scratched his knee. Then he reached out and gave Summer’s hand a quick pump. “Nick,” he mumbled.
“Oooh!” Lacey whispered loud enough to be heard in China. “Nick likes the new girl!” She jabbed me with her bony elbow. I edged away from her.
“Love at first sight!” Max yelled from the back of the room.
At the next group of desks, Alima and Jess giggled.
Owen stood up, pointed his finger at the back of his throat, and made gagging noises. Other kids laughed. As if she didn’t notice any of it, Summer lifted her desk lid and started putting away her pencils and folders. Nick just sat there looking miserable. Nick says he is not too nice for his own good, but he is, and shaking hands with the new girl like that was a perfect example. He knew that Owen would make fun of him. Now Owen was going to keep making fun of him until the whole class joined in.
In school we had to act like we hardly knew each other, but Nick Fanelli was my best friend. I had to do something to help him.
Through the glass in the door I could see Mrs. Winger’s hands waving as she talked. Mr. Allen was nodding. Owen gagged again, louder, to make sure he had every kid’s full attention. I needed to distract them. Maybe I could fold up a supersonic paper jet. A good one could loop all the way up to the ceiling, then shoot across the room. But a paper airplane could get me into trouble, and besides, it would take too much time to make one. I needed a better plan. I decided to pretend I was choking. As far as I knew, choking wasn’t against any rule, and I could do that right at my desk. Out in the hall, Mr. Allen was doing the talking and Mrs. Winger was listening. It was now or never. I coughed and wheezed, making the sounds as scary as possible, then put my hands around my throat. With a loud gasp I tipped sideways off my chair.
Slam! Summer’s desk lid dropped shut. The room went silent. From where I was lying on the floor I craned my head around to look. Summer had a pencil poking out of each ear, a pencil dangling from each nostril, and four more pencils jutting from her mouth like long yellow fangs. She had flipped her eyelids inside out for good measure.
Lacey screamed. Max leaped out of his chair. “Gross!” he shouted. “Ugh!” Alima and Jess wailed. The rest of the kids hooted and hollered.
The door swung open and hit the wall—bang! I pulled myself up into my chair. Everyone stopped still. You could hear the clock tick. I stared down at my desktop, letting the long brown curtain of my hair fall forward to hide my face. Mr. Allen’s purple high-top sneakers squeaked across the room and came to a halt right beside my desk.
My heart beat a rat-a-tat-tat, louder than the snare drum in band. I wondered if I could climb into my desk and shut the lid behind me. Next I wondered if Summer and I would be visiting Mrs. Winger’s office singly or together. Did they send two kids at a time? I didn’t know. I’d never been in visit-the-principal’s-office trouble before.
“Is everything all right in here?” Mr. Allen asked. I examined the worn-in scratches on my desktop and swallowed hard. I didn’t look at Nick, and I definitely didn’t look at Summer Crawford, pencil queen.
“Just fine,” Summer said.
I screwed my eyes shut. Well, that solved one half of the mystery. With her yellow fangs and the rest of it, Summer was definitely going to see Mrs. Winger. Under our desks, Nick poked my knee with his foot. I ignored him. He planted his foot on my knee and shoved. I opened one eye. Eight pencils with their big fat erasers on the tops lay in a neat line on Summer’s desk. Her eyelids were right side out.
“I feel at home here already,” Summer told Mr. Allen. She smiled so big she showed all of her teeth.
“Wonderful!” Mr. Allen bobbed his head up and down. “Better than marvelous!” He rubbed his hands together. “Now let’s get on with our morning work. Math first.”
Every kid in our class let out one long breath. Everybody, that is, except Owen. He just stared at Summer. He stared so hard I thought he might stare a hole right through to the other side of her.
“Need a pencil?” Summer asked him.
Owen opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again like he wanted to yell, except his voice wouldn’t cooperate. Nick bit his lip and buried his nose in his math book so that all you could see of him was his short red hair. I knew Nick wasn’t worrying about that handshake anymore, and he wasn’t worrying about long division.
He was worrying about what was going to happen now that Summer Crawford was here.