^«Why is your whole lunch in here?” Mom asked as she rummaged through my school bag. She narrowed her eyes at me, gripping the bag like it was evidence in a murder trial. “Didn’t you eat anything?”

“Yeah, I had an ice cream over in the soda shop.” I opened the fridge with my chin and shoulder, pulling on the special strap Dad had installed, opened the produce drawer with my foot, and lifted out a small bag of carrots.

I could feel Mom’s frown on my back. “You’re going to have to eat in front of the other kids at some point, Aven.”

“I know. I just wasn’t hungry today.”

“Are you embarrassed, honey?” she asked. I could hear the sadness in her voice.

“It was my first day, Mom. I just felt nervous, so I didn’t have any appetite.”

“Well, I hope that’s all it was,” she said. “Because you have nothing to feel embarrassed about.”

“I know that.” I shut the fridge and turned around. “You want to hear something weird?”

“Always.”

“Henry in the soda shop kept telling me I love tarantulas.”

“Well, do you?” she asked.

I laughed. “I don’t know. Why would he tell me that?”

“He has dementia, sweetheart. He doesn’t think clearly anymore. Who knows what might have been going on in his mind when he said that?”

“He just really seemed to think I was someone who would like tarantulas, I guess. He also gave me vanilla today. Yuck.”

Mom sighed. “I know. Dad and I don’t have the heart to replace him, though. He’s worked here for sixty years. How could we do that?”

“No, that would be awful,” I agreed. “I can learn to like vanilla.”

Mom smiled at me. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “I have a surprise for you.”

I followed her down the short hallway to my room, carrying my bag of baby carrots between my chin and shoulder. The apartment had only two little bedrooms, one bathroom, a living area, and a kitchen—a lot smaller than our house in Kansas.

“Ta-da,” she announced as we entered my tiny room.

“Wow,” I said, sitting down in front of the new computer she had set up at my desk.

“Dad and I thought you could use a new one. And we found a keyboard with extra large keys for preschoolers. Might be easier to use than our keyboard.”

I slipped my feet out of my flats and tapped my toes on the keys. “Yeah, I think this will work great. Thanks, Mom.”

I hit the power button with my toes and waited for it to start up.

“One more thing,” Mom said. She told me an address to type. “Your own blog!” she cried.

I stared at the page. “Cool.”

“Dad set it up for you. We know you love to read Emily and Brittney’s blogs, so we thought you should have one, too. It might be a good way for them to keep up on everything that’s going on with you here.”

“What should I blog about?”

“What do Emily and Brittney blog about?”

“Brittney mostly blogs about fantasy books, and Emily is trying to be a restaurant critic.”

Mom smiled. “Why don’t you blog about soccer? That reminds me—did you find out when tryouts are?”

“Not until spring, unfortunately. I kind of hoped they would have soccer in the fall.”

“That stinks,” Mom said. “Well, you and Dad will just have to keep practicing together until then.” Dad had already set up the new goal in the rodeo arena, and we had gone out there together early one morning before the sun could cook us. Despite the ball getting all dusty while we played, it had been kind of fun.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, we will.” Dad had enrolled me in soccer when I was in second grade. Prior to that, our attempts at several “dad” activities had mostly ended in failure, or worse, disaster. The time he tried to teach me how to fish immediately comes to mind—think fishing hooks in toes and ears and everywhere else except a fish’s mouth. Then there’s the time he took me camping. The whole trip stunk—no showers, no soft mattress, smelly campfire, no TV. I know you were thinking I was going to say it stunk for some reason that had to do with me not having arms. Nope. It stunk because I hate camping.

When Dad decided he just had to teach me a sport or he would die from never having any sort of bonding activity with me beyond watching old episodes of The Lone Ranger and eating chili together, soccer was the obvious choice. I have had nightmares about trying out for other sports at school—usually they involve people throwing various balls at me (footballs, baseballs, basketballs, take your pick) and those balls hitting me in the head or face while everyone in school watches. Not pretty. Soccer, though—that’s a sport I can manage.

Mom let out a big sigh. “Now I’ve got to get over to that stupid gold mine and talk to Bob.” She said his name with a sneer. “You know he actually smacked a gold pan out of a four-year-old’s hand today because he kept picking the quartz out instead of the gold. Dad had to give the whole family free ice cream and T-shirts.” She threw her hands up in exasperation.

“He’s pretty awful,” I said. “Any day now I expect he’ll hit a toddler over the head with one of those pans, and then you’ll have to give the family a whole lot more than ice cream and T-shirts.”

Her eyes grew huge with alarm like I was Madame Myrtle and had just foretold the actual future. I giggled as she stormed out of my room, having sufficiently worked herself up to lay into Bob, mumbling something about how he better get his butt in line or she’d be putting her foot in it. I was happy Mom was working with Dad at the park. She seemed to enjoy it, and it would give her something to do while I was at school during the day.

I turned and stared at the screen. I typed my first blog post.

School sucks and it’s hotter outside than the dishwasher’s steam cycle. But much less steamy. And it doesn’t smell like soap. At least my arms aren’t hot, though. Ha-ha. Yeah, that’s because I don’t have any.

I posted it and nodded at the screen with satisfaction. Then I sat on my bed and munched on the carrots while I worked on my homework. My teachers had all been nice enough, but I didn’t want them giving me special treatment. I could tell they all wanted to. The worst had been when Mr. Jeffries, my art teacher, had asked the class if someone would pair up with me to help me get my paints ready. I couldn’t have felt more put on the spot than if he had asked me to tap dance while balancing the paints on my head. I told him I didn’t need help and could get my paints ready myself.

The whole class had watched me the entire time, trying to pretend they weren’t watching, as I had collected my supplies and arranged them at my workspace. It took me at least twice as long as most people to do things like this, and yet I still managed to be the very first person in the room to have all my paints ready. I guess the other kids had been too busy observing. I tried not to let it get to me. I reminded myself throughout the day that curiosity was normal; I shouldn’t let it bother me.

I missed my friends back home. No one ever treated me like I was different in Kansas. Of course I’d had to deal with the usual stares when I’d go out places, but never at school. I especially missed Emily. I wished we were sitting on my bed together, working on our homework, listening to some terrible pop song Emily loved, giggling about something stupid. But it was just me.

I sighed as I wrote out a math problem, nimbly holding the pencil between my toes. I loved math. After all, it was just problem-solving. From the time I was little, my parents had trained me to be an extreme problem-solver—like a problem-solving ninja. Even when it took me an hour to get a bathing suit on once when I was eight, they still hadn’t done it for me. And I never had trouble getting my bathing suit on again. They were determined I would grow up to be a totally self-sufficient, problem-solving expert. I only wished I could solve the problem of how to make friends in a sea of kids who thought I was a freak.