“Hello, everyone! I hope you all had a nice summer,” Mrs. Gordon said, closing the door behind her.
Mrs. Gordon was my favorite teacher at Geek High. She was plump, with wispy hair that was forever falling out of an old-fashioned bun. Today she was wearing a yellow cardigan that was misbuttoned, and a floral skirt that had what looked like a coffee stain near the hem. But she had a kind smile, and her literature classes were the academic high point of my day.
“Welcome to Nineteenth-Century American Literature. We’re going to start with an old favorite of mine,” Mrs. Gordon continued. She reached into the box on her desk and pulled out a paperback book. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tate, will you pass out the books for me?”
While Tate grabbed a stack of books out of the box and began handing them around, I shot Nora a sideways glance. She still looked miserable. Her eyes were downcast and she was chewing on her lower lip. When she took the book Tate held out to her, I could see that her hand was shaking slightly. I felt another hot rush of anger toward Felicity. It was one thing for Felicity to pick on me—I knew what kind of person she was, so her opinion meant nothing to me. But to pick on poor Nora, who was new at Geek High and probably didn’t have a single friend here, was just plain mean.
Felicity apparently felt the weight of my gaze, because she turned to stare at me, raising her eyebrows provocatively. I rolled me eyes in disgust and looked away.
“Tom Sawyer is set in the antebellum South in the fictional town of St. Petersburg,” Mrs. Gordon said. “It’s a classic coming-of-age story. Has anyone read it?”
A few hands went up, including Tabitha Stone’s. Tabitha was widely seen as the literary genius of Geek High, largely because she’d had a book of poetry published two years earlier. I’d read her poems and wasn’t that impressed. Besides, Tabitha took herself way too seriously.
Tabitha kept her hand up, and Mrs. Gordon nodded at her.
“I think one of the most compelling themes in Tom Sawyer is the hypocrisy of the establishment. The church, the law, Tom’s school,” Tabitha said, sounding as condescending as ever.
“That’s true. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mrs. Gordon said. “Today I’ll introduce the book to you—the setting, the main characters, the historical background—so you’ll have a point of reference when you begin reading.”
Tabitha looked disgruntled. She loved showing off, and obviously resented not being praised for her superior knowledge.
Feeling cheered up, I opened my laptop and began taking notes.
When the bell rang, signaling the end of class, there was the usual flurry of activity. Laptops were stowed away, book bags were zipped up, people began chatting. By the time I’d packed up my things and turned around, Nora was gone. She must have scurried out of the classroom first thing.
I kept an eye out for Nora for the rest of the morning, but we didn’t have any other classes together. I had independent study for math with Mr. Gordon—husband of Mrs. Gordon and the coach for the math team—then, after math, I had physics with Mr. Forrester. Finn and Charlie were both taking physics with me, and Charlie was still visibly annoyed at Finn. I shared a table with Charlie, and we sat behind Finn and his buddy, Tate Metcalf.
I didn’t see Nora until lunchtime. Lunch at Geek High was served family style. The cafeteria staff set out platters of sandwiches, crudités, and cookies on each round table and everyone helped themselves. This was meant to foster a sense of camaraderie between the students, but instead, there’s such competition to get to the edible sandwiches (turkey, ham, chicken club) and avoid the inedible ones (tuna, egg salad, pimento loaf) that Geek High students have been known to rush the lunch room and dive at the platters. You’d think the cafeteria staff would have noticed the strong preferences, but if they did, it didn’t move them to make any changes to the menu. Maybe they enjoyed sadistically torturing us with goopy brown tuna salad studded with chunks of soggy celery.
During the usual mad dash into the lunch room, I saw Nora standing to one side, looking lost and a little overwhelmed at the swarm of activity around the lunch tables. I fought my way through the crowd and headed over to her.
“Hi,” I said. “Do you want to sit with us?”
Nora hesitated, still chewing on her bottom lip, but finally she nodded.
“It gets crazy in here at lunchtime,” I said as I led her to the table where Finn and Charlie were already seated, carefully guarding a platter of chicken club sandwiches.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Nora said.
“It’s the natural consequence of limited supply and increased demand. Just avoid the egg salad at all costs. Trust me.” I slid into an empty seat next to Finn, and gestured for Nora to sit next to me. “Nora, this is Finn and Charlie. Guys, this is Nora.”