She has enough personality to travel with two packs.

Ivy floats between the Suffering Artists on one side of the aisle and the Thespians on the other. Nicole lounges with the Jocks, comparing scars from summer league sports. Our clan, the Plain Janes, has splintered and the pieces are being absorbed by rival factions. There is no point looking for my ex-friends. I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. I didn’t go to the mall, the lake, or the pool, or answer the phone. I wasted the last weeks of August watching bad cartoons. We fall into clans: Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of America, Big Hair Chix, the Marthas, Suffering Artists, Thespians, Goths, Shredders. Older students are allowed to roam until the bell, but ninth-graders are herded into the auditorium. The board didn’t want to spring for new uniforms. Better the Devil you know than the Trojan you don’t, I guess. The school board has decided that “Merryweather High-Home of the Trojans” didn’t send a strong abstinence message, so they have transformed us into the Blue Devils. We pass janitors painting over the sign in front of the high school. A guy behind me unwraps his breakfast and shoots the wrapper at the back of my head. I try to open my window, but the little latches won’t move. The engine clanks, which makes the guys in the back holler something obscene. The driver downshifts to drag us over the hills. As we leave the last stop, I am the only person sitting alone. As they walk down the aisle, people who were my middle-school lab partners or gym buddies glare at me. The bus picks up students in groups of four or five. If I sit in the front, it will make me look like a little kid, but I figure it’s the best chance I have to make eye contact with one of my friends, if any of them have decided to talk to me yet. If I sit in the middle, a stranger could sit next to me. Where to sit? I’ve never been as backseat wastecase. The driver pulls away from the curb while I stand in the aisle. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.

Speak book laurie halse anderson