Violet blinks.
It really is a pinball game, Violet thinks.
The pigtail girl waves it off like it’s no big deal.
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” the headscarf girl cries from her
“Car accident. Really sad. Just don’t stare, and you’ll be good.” She sticks out her hand. “Hi, I’m Katie-Rose.
A third, beanpole-ish girl—still standing and not
I’m in Ms. Perez’s class, blech. Not blech ’cause of Ms.
sprawled on the floor—glares at headscarf girl. Then she
Perez. She’s actually super-nice, too. Blech because . . .
directs her attention to the pretty blonde girl. “Milla,” she
well . . .”
says, “are you okay?”
Katie-Rose lets her sentence trickle off in a mean-
“I’m fine,” the blonde girl says, looking dazed. Her
ingful way, and Violet suspects she’s supposed to say,
backpack has spilled open. Her stuff is all over the floor.
“What? Tell me!”
People step over it, or try to. Some pause briefly. Some
But Violet is stuck on the arm thing, which does seem like a big deal. Katie-Rose might think it’s not, but
laugh. Some scrunch their foreheads with concern, or with relief that it wasn’t them.
Katie-Rose still has two arms—one of which is hovering
“Nice, Spazaman,” Beanpole says to the girl in the
in front of Violet like a pale white fish. Violet shakes it,
headscarf. “I see you didn’t take coordination classes over
but as quickly as humanly possible. Since when do fifth
the summer.”
graders shake hands?
The girl in the headscarf blushes. Katie-Rose, Violet
“So . . . Mr. Emerson’s room?” she repeats.
notices, seems to be inching away from the scene of the
“That way,” Katie-Rose says, gesturing exuberantly.
crime. She’s certainly not waving her hand and saying,
She whacks a girl wearing a headscarf, who stumbles backward and crashes into a pretty blonde girl. Both girls—headscarf girl and pretty blonde girl—go down. They go down hard. 58
sprawled position.
“No, really, it was me! My fault, so sorry!” “Quin, hush,” Milla says to Beanpole. She turns to the girl in the headscarf. “Yasaman, I’m fine.” Ahhhh, Violet thinks, matching names with faces. 59