And by the time I got to my feet, the food fight was in full effect. Food flew, hard and fast like propelled by the winds of a hurricane, until the whole thing came to a crashing end with many angry whistle blasts and me and Tanner getting pulled into the office.

I will say, at least it wasn’t a waste of pizza, because the Greenville High cafeteria pizza was and is horrible. Like don’t call it pizza if it’s actually a soft, barely edible, triangular piece of cardboard covered in red-and-yellow goop. Like, maybe people in Greenville are so mad all the time because they’ve never had a decent slice. Which I can say I’ve had in almost every other place I’ve lived in, including Petaluma, which has a population of 60,000 and at least a dozen great pizzerias.

(Do the math. Greenville could still have at least one.)

I gathered that the pizza detail was not something anyone, my mom included, wanted to hear from me as I stood in her office—her new office—an hour later, with her new boss, Principal Lynde, who I will describe as a woman who was tall and made of granite, with impossibly shiny hair piled on top of her head in a perfect silver bun and green wire-frame glasses. A woman with the smallest, angriest mouth I have ever seen on a human.

Principal Lynde was standing in the middle of my mom’s office when I arrived. Tanner and who I could only assume were his parents were sitting in the waiting area just outside. The look on my mom’s face said that these things were not in any way good things.

“Well then,” Lynde snapped, her voice cutting glass, “quite the first impression. Violence. And disorder. And spreading her influence all over the student body. And. . .” Principal Lynde leaned forward and peered over her glasses. “Dressed like a prostitute to boot.”

My eyes widened.

“And that hair.” Lynde shook her head.

Lucy stepped forward. “Principal Lynde,” she cut in. “Anne’s clothing and hair are not at issue here, and I would like to be clear—”

“OH!” Principal Lynde swiveled, her body stiff. “So you are clear what is and isn’t at issue here? Are you? I’m glad you’re so experienced with these matters, Miss Shirley.”

“I am. . .” Lucy snuck a look at me. “I am of course not pleased to have to discipline Anne on the first day, but that falls within my responsibilities, and I will make sure I deal with this situation appropriately.”

Principal Lynde sniffed the sniff of the unimpressed.