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with me after school today? For moral support, to tell my mother? Because she, I don’t know what she’ll say.”
    “Today?”
    “It’s too short notice, right? Never mind.”
    “No,” she said. “I don’t care about that.”
    “Oh. I have a quarter if you want to call your mom and ask. Unless you have plans with somebody else.”
    “No,” she said. “I have no life, and my mom won’t care. Oops.” She bent down to retie her shoelace.
    “Great, then.”
    I didn’t want to stare at our table, where Morgan and Olivia were whispering together, so I casually glanced around. Gideon Weld was signalling me and Zoe to come over to the boys’ table. Tommy pushed him. Obviously, my boyfriend didn’t want me at his table. Oh, well. I don’t need him watching me chew.
    “You’re so lucky,” I whispered to Zoe, as she stood up.
    “You’re the one Tommy wants to sit with,” she said, looking toward the boys’ table.
    I felt myself blushing. “He does not, either.” I hoped I was wrong and Zoe was right—that maybe Tommy was just shy but really wanted to be with me.
    Zoe shrugged. We sat down at the other end of Morgan’s table. She looked at us, then whispered something to Olivia.
    “And anyway,” I whispered to Zoe. “I meant, that you can just do what you want, without your mother getting all, involved.”
    Zoe shrugged again and ripped open her lunch bag. “I’m the fifth kid,” she explained. “By the time I came around, my parents were like, oh, just put her out in the backyard with the others.”
    I looked down the table at Morgan, who cupped her hand over Olivia’s ear. “Hey,” I whispered to Zoe. “Um, do you think, maybe we shouldn’t put our friendship rings in our Bring Yourself in a Sack.”
    She looked down at her friendship ring and covered the knot with her thumb.
    “Just because”—I tilted my head toward Morgan—“you know. A lot’s going on with her at home, and we don’t need to shove it in her face.”
    “Oh, sure,” Zoe agreed, nodding. “No big deal.”
    “Thanks,” I whispered.
    She held out her baggie of homemade cookies. I almost said no thanks, but then, to celebrate my new normal life, I ate one. I don’t normally eat cookies, because to be graceful as a swan you can’t let yourself get chubby. Sometimes when I get bored during barre exercises I say cookie names in rhythm: Nutter Butter Oreo Chips Ahoy Deluxe. I bit into Zoe’s cookie smiling, like, Ha! I’m regular! I play soccer. I eat cookies .
    It didn’t taste as good as I’d expected.

seven
    M y mother saw us and beeped. Beeped and beeped. Zoe waved. She hopped toward the car, holding her sneaker, because for her emergency tenth thing in her Bring Yourself in a Sack in place of her friendship ring, she had taken the frayed shoelace out of her sneaker and explained, “This is because I am barely holding myself together.” Everybody had laughed. Her project was definitely the funniest—she even had a piece of French toast in there to show her family’s favorite food. Mine was just so boring—this is my toe shoe, these are exercise bands, this is a program from The Nutcracker . All dance stuff except History, who I threw in this morning as my tenth thing. If I really do quit ballet, I thought, maybe I’ll be less boring, like Zoe and Tommy and Morgan. Even Olivia had all different kinds of things—charcoal pencils, a calculator, soccer ball earrings, a dictionary, a pool ball. I was so embarrassed.
    “Hi, Zoe!” Mom yelled out the window. I want my friends and Mom to like one another. It was always a hard part about Morgan, that Mom thinks she’s an angry person—that’s what she says, but I sort of worry that maybe Mom is just a snob. Mom says no, it’s not her house or her shoes, she only worries that Morgan hurts my feelings. Which is true. It’s a relief that Mom thinks I’m making a good choice of Zoe as a best friend.
    “How did it go?” Mom whispered when I opened the front