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    â€œThat’s my brother,” I told Nell.
    â€œI got three brothers,” she said. I noticed she didn’t ask me any questions. “There’s the two littles, then the big guy. Him and me are only a year apart. I only hit them when they get out of line. They know not to mess with me. I keep them in line, all right.”
    â€œI like your fingernails,” I said. “How’d you get ’em that color?”
    She leaned toward me. I could smell her hair. It smelled of hair spray.
    â€œThat’s nothing,” she bragged. “You oughta see my toenails.” There didn’t seem to be much to say to that so I didn’t say it. When the bus pulled up in the school parking lot, I asked Nell if she wanted me to show her where the principal’s office was. She shrugged. “I’ll find it,” she said. “Come on, you,” and she herded her brothers in front of her. If it’d been me, I would’ve been shaking in my shoes. A new school on the first day is a nervous-making thing. Ask anybody. But not Nell. I stared at her as she marched her brothers in the door, her ringlets bouncing, mittens stuffed in her pocket so everyone could see her green fingernails.

7
    In the lunchroom Nell was surrounded by boys; thin, fat, short, tall, you name it. Older boys, like Tommy Minch and Roger Brough. Roger already had a mustache. I heard he trimmed it in the boys’ room with his mother’s manicure scissors. He and Tommy had been left back so many times nobody could remember what grade they were in. Boys whose names I didn’t even know, and I’d been in the same school all my life. Well, since kindergarten, anyway.
    â€œWhat’s she doing, giving away dollar bills?” Rowena huffed, her nostrils flaring as she watched Nell through slitted eyes. Her jaws moved as if they were keeping time to music as she chewed her bologna sandwich. “I’m surprised they stand for that sort of thing in the lunchroom.”
    Betty pressed her lips together and said, “I never.” The words came out as if they’d been squashed along the way. “I absolutely never.” She didn’t say what she never. She opened her lunch bag and peered down into it, holding her head back on her long neck as if she expected something live to spring out at her.
    â€œShe just got here,” Rowena said in an aggrieved tone, “and would you please look at her. She must think she’s a TV personality. Who does she think she is!” Rowena tossed her head, and the odor of vinegar filled the air.
    â€œMy mother says they’re only renting,” Rowena said. A burst of laughter ricocheted around the room. I saw one of the boys, who only last week had stuffed a note down Rowena’s sweater, making goo-goo eyes at Nell. Rowena saw him too, and although at the time she’d told me she thought he was terribly immature, I noticed her watching him watching Nell, and her face was not friendly. I ate my cream cheese and nut sandwich and thought about the fickle hearts of men. About which I know zilch.
    â€œSo what if they’re only renting?” I said. “I think she’d be very good to have in the club.”
    â€œIn what way?” Betty asked, sounding like a dowager at a tea party. “In what way could she possibly be good to have in the Chum Club?” She always calls it by its full name, Chum Club. Just because it was her idea. She thinks it sounds classier that way.
    â€œFor one thing, she knows how to find stuff at the dump. You heard her. And we need stuff to sell. That’s what a yard sale’s all about, dummy. Items to sell. You heard what she said about the davenport and the bed and the chiffonier.”
    I had them. I could tell by the light of pure, unadulterated greed shining from their eyes that I had them by the tail.
    â€œI don’t even know what a chiffonier is ,” Rowena said, but her voice lacked