“Dang. Looks like maybe that sign-up sheet is full.” Tanner craned his head to see, an exaggerated frown twisting the bottom of his face.

“Can we just go?” Gilly whispered.

Sarah ignored her. “Too bad. I mean, I heard Mr. Davidson was thinking of doing Miss Saigon. Which like. So perfect, right? I mean, since we have an actual Saigon now.”

“You know it, Anne?” Tanner asked, nonchalant. “Missss Sai gon?”

“I’m Japanese,” I growled. “Saigon is Vietnamese.”

“Same same?” Tanner chimed.

The next thing I knew I was clawing the list off the wall, storming over to them, shouting. “FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING SCHOOL!” I tossed the crumpled paper and it hit Gilly in the face.

She batted the paper away, clearly stunned. “Screw you, Carrots,” she snapped.

“Carrots?” I sneered, stepping up close. “That’s what you got? Carrots?”

Gilly looked stunned. Maybe even upset? But I didn’t care. I sprinted away, with Berry on my heels.

“KUNG FU PANDA!” Sarah yelled after me. “JACKIE CHAN!”

“That’s Chinese,” I yelled back as I fled down the hall, the lockers blurring into a streak of forest green.

I heard a door open behind me and a bellow, “WHAT’S GOING ON?”

By then I was bounding down the stairs two at a time. I spent Math in the bathroom with Berry, who crept in after me and perched on the floor a few feet away from where I sat, sprawled under the sink. What better musical accompaniment for feeling like crap than the leaky sound of a school bathroom sink dripping?

Berry spent the first several minutes of our silence looking at me, then looking away. I spent the first several minutes of our silence thinking about how ignorant racism is. Miss Saigon? Like what high school kid even knows Miss Saigon? That’s, like, nineties racism. But that’s the thing with racism. It’s so retro, yet so now. So entirely uninformed and uneducated and yet it feels like its scientifically designed to turn you into nothing.

Finally Berry got up onto her knees. “Disco?”

“Now? Like dancing?” I grumbled. “Not really in the mood.”

“I just thought if we played something.” Berry drummed her fingers on her knees. She had pink paint on her fingertips. “You know it makes you feel better. Music.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Pressed the power button. Held it up for Berry to see. “Out of juice.”

Berry pulled her phone out of her pocket. Frowned. “Yeah, me too.”

“So,” I said, then went back to feeling both nothing and so overwhelmingly sad I might melt.

“Okay.”

I looked over. Berry had closed her eyes. As I stared, she opened her lips and, after a deep breath, let out the tiniest but heart-fullest tune.. . .

ABBA.

ABBA in the high school bathroom.

“Super Trouper.”

Berry opened one eye, trained it on me as she started in on the chorus. She even sang the piano parts.