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Maddy. What do you mean, the people are hard?”
    Maddy frowned, obviously planning her reply. “Other kids sometimes think I’m strange, right?” she finally said, not really asking. “Like those boys this morning. And hardly anyone talks to me at school, but my counselor is helping me with that. She says I should just say hi to people first, and ask them how they’re doing,” she added.
    â€œBut what does your counselor say is the matter with you?” Skye asked, hoping the question wasn’t too rude.
    â€œNothing’s the matter with me, but I have a
syndrome,”
Maddy said, sounding both important and a little mysterious. “That means like a pattern of symptoms – but not symptoms like being sick,” she assured Skye.
    â€œThat’s good,” Skye said weakly. “But I think youshould tell people, Maddy. Because maybe then they’d leave you alone,” she said, thinking of those boys in the hall.
    â€œDo you tell people everything that’s different about you?” Maddy asked, sounding curious once more.
    â€œWell, no,” Skye admitted, thinking of her sketchbook–and, of course, her brother. And the fights her mom and dad were having. “I guess I don’t.”
    â€œMe either,” Maddy said, smiling. “So we’re very similar, Skye!”
    â€œSort of, anyway,” Skye admitted. “But – but who was that boy who grabbed you this morning?”
    â€œThat was Cord Driscoll,” Maddy said quietly. “He and Aaron Petterson are friends. Aaron is the mean one, Danko Marshall is the big, scary-looking one, and Kee Williams is the other one.”
    â€œYou should have gotten out of the way,” she told Maddy. “This morning, I mean.”
    â€œI couldn’t,” Maddy said. “I was worried about you, Skye.”
    â€œWorried?” Skye asked, shocked. “About
me
? Why?”
    â€œBecause you were just standing there and standing there, with your head inside your empty locker,” Maddy said. “I thought maybe you were stuck.”
    â€œI wasn’t stuck,” Skye replied softly, hiding an embarrassed smile. “Look, Maddy,” she said. “You have to getout of the way when boys go running through the hall like that. Especially eighth-grade boys.”
    â€œThey weren’t
all
in the eighth grade,” Maddy argued. “The boy who told Aaron to ease up this morning is Kee Williams, who is sometimes pretty nice. He’s just in the seventh grade, but he’s on the same football team as the older boys, so he hangs out with them. It’s an honor for him, I guess.”
    â€œHow do you know all this stuff about everyone?” Skye asked, truly curious.
    Maddy shrugged. “Sierra Madre’s a small town,” she told Skye. “Everyone pretty much knows everyone else, except for the new people.”
    â€œWell, I might be new,” Skye said, “but I’m right about getting out of the way when boys run by, Maddy.”
    â€œWhy? Because they’re bigger than us, and they might knock us over?”
    â€œWell, yeah,” Skye said. “And also because they’re
boys
.”

    â€œBut that’s not fair,” Maddy said, frowning as they turned into Eucalyptus Terrace. “I’m a member of the planet Earth just like them. I’m just as much a human being as they are.”
    â€œNot in middle school you aren’t,” Skye mumbled, but she wouldn’t repeat herself when Maddy asked what she’d just said.

    Hi, Mom! Thanks for calling! Here is some stuff I forgot to say. I got my fine arts elective after all! It is fourth period. There are some art kids who are nice, and Gran seems relieved that I fit in at least somewhere in what she calls the social ecology of our school.
    I hope your back is better. Say hi to Dad for me, okay? And Scott, too.
    Love, Skye
    P.S. Is Hana okay? I have only heard