So I do. I don’t say anything as I take out my sketchbook— I turn past the pages of Dewey drawings, and I try not to let her see as I begin a brand-new drawing of the origami bunny that is sitting out right in front of me. Quickly, I draw out the pointy lines that make up the rabbit’s ears and face and body and tail in my sketchbook.

Macy nudges the paper bunny toward me, and when I look up, she says, “You can hold it, if you want. I mean, if it would help.”

Carefully, I pluck the paper rabbit with two fingers and set it in the palm of my hand. I’m just about to start drawing when suddenly Bailey leans across the table and sneers, talking above everyone else in our class. “Oh look, Mean Machine and Spacegirl finally found a friend—how sweet!” She coos, puckering her lips, “Too bad you’re both losers.”

I open my mouth, trying to find the perfect retort—the one that will shut Bailey up for good—but she has already gone back to her own conversation, not even thinking of me or Macy anymore. “Jerk,” I mutter to myself.

At first, I think Macy didn’t hear me because she doesn’t say anything right away. But then she looks at me, the edges of her mouth twitching like she’s trying not to smile. “You know what?” she says. “I wish I was a machine. Then I could figure out a way to reboot Bailey’s personality.”

Her words wrap around me like a warm blanket, and, for the first time since Jude left, I remember what it feels like to belong again.

“And I wish I had a spaceship,” I reply, barely containing my chuckle. “I’d use it to send her to the moon.”

“No, farther—send her to Mars!”

“Or maybe,” I add, “she could just hang out in Saturn’s rings for a while to think about what a jerk she is. A brand-new kind of detention!”

Macy covers her mouth and giggles, then goes back to eating her lunch.

As I hold the origami bunny in my hand, I realize it’s not really that fragile at all. It’s stiff and sturdy. I can’t figure out how Macy transformed what was once just a flat piece of paper into this creature that looks like it could hop right out of my hand.

It’s nearing the end of the lunch period by the time I look up to find that Macy has been watching me draw. “That’s really good,” she says in almost a whisper, like she isn’t sure she really wants to say that out loud.

“Thank you,” I tell her. “It looks really hard to make those.”