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through the doors.
    I walked right in, interrupting the lecturing teacher, who had drawn up the entire shop class in a semicircle around him. My entrance provoked a multitude of stares, hoots, and snickers. I looked around at the students. They all wore dingy denim or canvas aprons, heavily stained with greasy handprints. I was the only girl. I clutched the hall pass in my hand a little tighter, crumpling the paper.
    “Can I help you?” Mr. Reynolds turned to me, annoyed that I’d interrupted his class. His eyes bugged out behind the safety glasses he wore, making him look like an overgrown insect.
    “Um,” I started, uncomfortably frozen in his stare. “Um. I’m a new student assigned to your class. Which is crazy, because I’m not supposed to be in here,” I said, unable to stop the nervous chatter from escaping my lips. “I mean, I was supposed to be in home ec. Or AP chemistry now. Not shop.”
    Mr. Reynolds glowered at me from behind his safety glasses. I realized I’d inadvertently insulted him.
    “Not that there’s anything wrong with shop,” I added lamely, thrusting my hall pass up at him.
    He pushed his safety glasses up onto his forehead and read the pass. “Carmichael, eh? Nobody informed me you were joining my class. I take it you have no experience with the mechanical arts?” He pinned me down with a glare as I shook my head.
    “You’re just in time,” he continued. “I was just about to demonstrate the proper use of a blowtorch. You can be my model.”
    The entire class erupted into catcalls. Over the din I heard someone shout, “New girl!” With a sinking feeling, I peered into the crowd. There, in the back of the class, I spotted the obnoxious boy from my bus.
    “Come over here,” Mr. Reynolds commanded, enjoying my discomfort. “What’s the first rule of shop, class?”
    “Safety first!” The class roared in unison, adding chest beating and more hooting to the din. Mr. Reynolds grinned and held out a big helmet, beckoning for me to come forward.
    I shifted my backpack to one side and stepped to the middle of the semicircle. I stared at the big helmet. It looked like it belonged on a space suit from the 1950s.
    “Go on, Miss Carmichael. Demonstrate proper safety technique to the class.” Mr. Reynolds thrust the helmet at me again.
    “But, I just—” I looked helplessly at the door.
    “C’mon, how hard can it be?” Mr. Reynolds taunted me, tossing the helmet up in the air and catching it deftly with one hand.
    I reached for it and he dramatically let it go, leaving me with the helmet’s entire dead weight. It went crashing to the floor. The entire class roared with laughter as I cradled my fingers.
    “Oh, is the helmet a little heavy for you?” Mr. Reynolds said solicitously. “I forgot these older models aren’t quite as lightweight. Go ahead, pick it up and put it on.”
    I started to protest, but snapped my mouth shut. There was no way I was going to let him intimidate me. I dropped my backpack and bent over to retrieve the helmet. I heaved it up with both hands before trying to force it down over my head. When it got to my ears, I got stuck. I twisted and turned the thing around on my head but only succeeded in mangling my own ears.
    “Ow!” I cried as someone banged it down, hard. I could barely see out of the tiny, dark window.
    “Next time you might want to open up the helmet,” Mr. Reynolds said drily as he flipped up the top, exposing my head to the foul air of the shop room. “You might want to pay attention to the rest of the safety tips.”
    My humiliation complete, he dismissed me. I hurried to the edge of the room, trying to be as inconspicuous as I could be with a giant tin can on top of my head.

    From that inauspicious beginning, my day went downhill. The school itself was like a maze, and I was late for every class, instantly earning the ire of every teacher. It turned out that all my classes were wrong—nothing matched the schedule my mom had so