Nadia closed her eyes and, after a moment, opened them again. Still glowing.
“Your Majesty,” she said slowly, not taking her eyes off the necklace. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Stinky crocodile spit!” said a voice.
Nadia whipped around to the bobbleheads. Had the queen really just answered her? Maybe this was a special electronic, talking bobblehead? But queens didn’t usually talk about crocodile spit, did they? Nadia slowly approached the bookshelf.
The voice rang out again. “It’s about time! I thought you’d never say the word. I’ve been trapped in that amulet FOREVER. Do you see how small that thing is? Not comfortable for a weekend, let alone thousands of years!”
Now Nadia was sure it wasn’t the queen. She looked around wildly. “Wh-what … Who are you? Where are you?”
“Over here, on the desk!”
“On the desk?”
“Yoo-hoo!” the voice said. “In your notebook!”
Nadia went over to the desk, her heart beating hard. And there, on the college-ruled pages of what was to be her math notebook, a little animated man was jumping up and down, waving wildly at her.
“Nadia?” Adam appeared in her doorway. “What’s taking so long? Did you find the comic yet?”
Nadia whirled around, completely speechless, then looked back at the little man on the page. Adam couldn’t see him from where he was standing. The little man stuck both thumbs into his ears and waggled his fingers at her.
“I … I couldn’t find the comic,” she told Adam. Then, without thinking twice, she shut the notebook and shoved it into one of the desk drawers, next to her stash of Egyptian candy bars. “Sorry.”
She stole a glance at her necklace in the mirror. It wasn’t glowing anymore.
“Aw man, I really wanna see that comic,” Adam whined.
Nadia frowned. Her friend sounded so disappointed. She grabbed a candy bar. “Here, take this in the meantime. Mandolin bars are totally delicious.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Adam said. He ripped open the wrapper and took a big bite.
“As it turns out, you’re right,” he admitted. “But I’m still holding out for the comic.”
“I’ll look for it tonight,” Nadia promised, practically pushing him out the door.
She couldn’t tell Adam what she thought she had just seen. If it was real, Adam would totally freak out … and she could only handle one person losing it at a time. And if it wasn’t real, then she was imagining things. And she’d like to keep that to herself. For now, at least.
“Nadia, sah El nom ya habibti. Wake up, my love!” Nadia’s mom was shaking her gently. “You’ll be late for your first day of school.”
Nadia bolted up and glanced at the clock. There was only half an hour until school started. With all the craziness last night, she must have forgotten to set her alarm!
She thanked her mom as she jumped out of bed. “Shukran ya, Mama!”
Nadia quickly got dressed. Just to be sure, she checked her necklace in the mirror. Not glowing.
After Adam had left the night before, Nadia had dug her notebook out of the drawer and looked for the little man, but the page was blank. Honestly, she’d been a little relieved. Magic—if that’s what it was—didn’t mix very well with facts. She decided she must have fallen asleep when she crashed on the bed and had a weird sugar-induced dream.
“Luck me wish,” she said to the Yoda bobblehead. Then she grabbed her backpack.
Downstairs, Nadia took her lunch bag and a cereal bar from her mom, gave her dad a quick kiss on the cheek, and dashed out the front door to meet up with Adam on the corner.
“So who’s your homeroom teacher?” he asked as Nadia took a big bite of the cereal bar. The class assignments had been sent out via email the night before.
“Ms. Arena,” said Nadia, but it came out like “Mmmms Aruhruh.”
“Who?” said Adam.
Nadia swallowed. “Sorry. Ms. Arena. You?”
“Same!”
“Awesome,” Nadia said, and they began walking. “Do you know if Vikram, Sarah, or Chloe are in the class, too?”
“Vikram texted me he’s in Ms. Wahl’s class,” Adam said. “Not sure about Sarah or Chloe.”
Nadia and Adam had met Sarah, Vikram, and Chloe the year before and had quickly discovered they had a lot in common. They all were quick-witted, interested in the world around them, and took school—but not necessarily themselves—very seriously. They became a tight little group, eating lunch together every day, joining the same clubs, and hanging out after school. Vikram had even come up with a nickname for them—the Nerd Patrol.
As Nadia and Adam headed to school, they listed other students they hoped might be in their class. Andrew, Oona, and Abby. Maybe Olivia and Liam, though sometimes they could be annoying.
They were just approaching the drop-off area when a minivan door slid open and out popped a girl with long black hair and glasses.
“Sarah!” Nadia ran over and gave her a hug, then waved to Sarah’s mom. “Hey, Mrs. Choi!”
“Nice outfit, Nadia!” Sarah said as they walked up to the front doors to the school. Sarah was a T-shirt-and-jeans kind of girl, but always appreciated other people’s style, too.
“Thanks for noticing,” Nadia said. “Someone else didn’t.”
“Notice what?” Adam said.
Nadia and Sarah rolled their eyes.
It turned out Sarah was in Ms. Arena’s homeroom, too, so they all headed there together.
Ms. Arena was standing at the door to her classroom, a big tub of colorful hard candies under one arm.
“Good morning!” Ms. Arena said brightly.
“What’s with the candy?” Adam asked. Nadia elbowed him. (Not-particularly-fun-but-still-important fact: First impressions matter.)
“I’m Nadia Youssef,” she said, and held out her hand for Ms. Arena to shake. “And this is Adam Winter, and Sarah Choi.”
Ms. Arena looked a little surprised at the formal introduction but shook Nadia’s hand anyway. “Nice to meet you all.” She held up the candy. “We’re going to do an activity with these. Take as many candies as you’d like, but don’t eat them yet.”
Nadia fished around in the bowl, taking three pink candies. She hoped they were raspberry and not watermelon flavored.
Once inside, the three friends grabbed seats close together. Nadia hung her backpack on the chair and scanned the room. Bridget Mason Middle School started in fifth grade, so she already knew most of the kids. But there was one unfamiliar face at the back of the room, a boy talking to a group of popular kids. She caught Adam’s eye and cocked her head at the boy.
“Who’s that?” she mouthed.
Adam took a look and shrugged. “New kid?” he mouthed back.
Nadia stole a closer look. New Kid had shaggy sandy hair and blue eyes. He had a weird way of tossing his head when his hair fell forward, but other than that he seemed normal. Judging by the other kids’ laughter, he was pretty funny.
The bell rang a minute later. Once everyone was seated, Ms. Arena addressed the class.
“Welcome to sixth grade,” she said. “I’m thrilled to be your teacher, and I know we’ve got an exciting year ahead of us. Principal Taylor will be doing the morning announcements in about ten minutes, which gives us the perfect amount of time to do a little activity. I know most of you already know each other, but we do have a new student. Plus, I don’t know anything about any of you.” She smiled. “You all took candies when you walked into the room. I’d like you to count them. However many you took is the number of fun facts you’ll need to tell the class about yourself. We’ll take thirty seconds now so everyone can think of what to say.”
Sarah, who hated being put on the spot, turned to Nadia, a stricken look on her face. There was a fistful of candy clutched in her hand. Even Adam might have had a hard time coming up with that much to say about himself. Nadia gave Sarah a sympathetic look.
Nadia stared at the three candies on her own desk. She absolutely loved fun facts, but she was having trouble coming up with even a single one about herself. She was smart and focused. A good friend and a hard worker. Always on time (with the exception of this morning). But were any of those things fun?
“I’ll start,” said Ms. Arena. “My name is Ms. Arena. I took three candies. Number one, I have a twin sister named Jennifer. Number two, we are identical. Number three, Jennifer and I spent the summer helping build a school in Tanzania.”
That was seriously impressive. Nadia pitied whoever had to go next.
“How about you?” said Ms. Arena, pointing at Nadia, of course.
Nadia sat up straighter in her chair. “My name is Nadia. Number one, I spend my summers in Egypt. Number two, I collect facts and I win every trivia contest I’ve ever competed in. And number three …” Her mind was a complete blank. Adam turned around and gave her an encouraging look. “I have an amazing group of friends,” she finished.
“Ah, I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt!” said Ms. Arena. “Thanks for sharing, Nadia.” Then she pointed to Adam. “Would you like to go next?”
Adam had only chosen four pieces of candy, but he didn’t let that limit him. “My name is Adam. Number one, I went to England on my summer vacation. My favorite thing was the Medieval Museum of Torture. You have no idea the terrible things people did to each other. But if you’d like to know, I took lots of videos. I love videography and pretty much anything tech! Number two, I love gross things like horror movies and medieval torture museums and basically anything like that. Number three, once when I was six, I was visiting New York City with my parents and I got separated from them and instead of being scared I just rode the subway by myself for a couple of hours. When I finally got tired, I found a policeman and told him I was ready to go back to the hotel. And number four, I have my appendix in a jar in my bedroom. True story.”
A couple kids grimaced but Nadia smiled. She had seen the appendix and it was actually pretty cool.
“Wow, thank you, Adam!” Ms. Arena said.
When it was Sarah’s turn, she held up a lone candy. Nadia saw that she’d shoved the rest into her pocket.
“My name is Sarah and I like to surf with my dog.” Sarah then smiled and popped the candy into her mouth, looking very relieved.
As they went around the room, Nadia learned a lot about her classmates. Andrew went to Taiwan four times a year to visit his grandfather and loved to visit the night markets and try different dumplings and ices. Eva had read one hundred books over the summer. Jack had won a ballroom dancing competition.
“And how about you?” asked Ms. Arena, pointing to the new kid. “This is your first year at Bridget Mason, right?” Everyone turned around to the back of the room and stared at him.
“That’s right,” the new boy said. He waved to the class. “Hey, my name is Jason. One thing about me is that I just moved to California from outside of Chicago. Number two is that I’m looking forward to learning how to surf. And number three, when I was ten, I got picked to do a free throw from half court at a Bulls game and I sunk it. I won season tickets.”
“Ooooooooooh,” said the class. A popular boy named Aiden reached over and bumped fists with Jason. Adam turned around to stare. He looked seriously impressed, even though Nadia knew he thought sports were capital-B Boring. Weird.
“So yeah,” Jason said. “California’s not Chicago, but it seems pretty cool so far.”
“Welcome, Jason,” said Ms. Arena. “I hope that we’ll help make you feel comfortable in your new home.”
Nadia raised her hand. A fun fact had popped into her brain. She thought it would be nice to share it, to make New Kid feel welcome.
“Yes, Nadia?”
“Did you know that the Twinkie was invented in Chicago?” she asked. She smiled at Jason.
Jason stared at her for a moment. “What’s your name again?” he finally said. “Google?”
The class exploded into laughter. Nadia gave a little laugh, too. She knew Jason was making fun of her, but the joke was on him—she didn’t mind being a human search engine. All her facts came in handy during class discussions, school projects, you name it. Her classmates and even teachers always looked to her for good ideas.
Nadia raised her eyebrows at Jason as if to say, “Yeah, and?”
But before Jason could answer, the loudspeaker clicked on.
“Good morning, students. Welcome back to Bridget Mason Middle School!” the voice rang out in a tinny tone. “For all you new students, and for any old students who may have forgotten me these last few months, this is Principal Taylor speaking. I hope you all had a fruitful summer and are ready to buckle down and make this the best school year yet! I know that the teachers and staff are eager to get started, and I hope that you are, too.
“Now I have some incredible news! The Museum of American History is celebrating their hundredth anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, they’re creating a brand-new gallery.”
Nadia perked up. She’d visited the museum so many times, she had her own subcollection of bobbleheads from the gift shop.
“Ooh,” said Jason in a mock-excited voice. “A new gallery!”
Everyone laughed. Ms. Arena shushed them, but Nadia could see a little smirk tugging on the corners of her mouth, despite herself.
Principal Taylor went on. “The theme of the gallery will be ‘What Makes America, America,’ and the museum wants to know what you, the next generation, have to say about it. Which leads me to the incredible news: Students are invited to present ideas for one of the exhibits.”
“Great, more homework,” muttered a girl seated across the aisle from Nadia.
“The winning idea will be made into an actual exhibit in the museum,” said Principal Taylor. “The winning students will also get their names on the exhibit, along with the name of their school.”
Nadia’s heart skipped a beat. Getting her own exhibit would be seriously cool.
“And last but not least,” said Principal Taylor, “the winners will get one thousand dollars in prize money, provided by an anonymous donor.”
“Now you’re talking!” shouted Jason. Cheers from all the classrooms in the school reverberated down the hallways, too.
“Oh, now I’ve got your attention, do I?” said Mr. Taylor. He chuckled. “This is an amazing opportunity for our students and our school, and I hope many of you participate. But if you want to exhib-it, you’ve got to be in it, so don’t forget to fill out an entry form!” He paused for laughter at his little rhyme, but most students were still chattering about the prize money. “Your teachers will share the rest of the details with you. Let’s make Bridget Mason Middle School proud!” The loudspeaker clicked off.
The chattering in the room picked up. Nadia tried to catch Adam’s eye to see if he wanted to work together, but he was intently staring toward the back of the room. To where Jason was sitting, Nadia realized.
“All right,” Ms. Arena said. She clapped her hands to call them back to order. “I’m glad you’re all so excited. Let’s go over the details.”
Ms. Arena rattled off the guidelines, but Nadia could barely concentrate—there were already a million ideas swirling in her brain. (Fact: She was going to win this thing.)