“Yes, Kiera,” says Mrs. Young.

“Fraternal twins are twins but don’t look exactly alike and sometimes they’re boys and girls.”

Mrs. Young snaps her fingers. “Eureka!”

“Ohhhhh,” says Dusty, giving Kiera the thumbs-up. “Thanks.”

“No problem!” she says brightly.

I sigh, but it comes out more like a huff. The worst part about Kiera is that she’s nice. She’s just not nice to me, which means that what happened between us is more than just “mean girl drama” as my mom calls it. Because even though I hate to admit it, Kiera’s not really a mean girl. In fact, last week she bought lunch for some random fifth grader when their lunch account was at zero.

Kiera shivers and turns around. “Maybe don’t breathe down my neck?” She points to my nose. “I think you’ve got, like, fuzz or a hair in your nose, by the way. Gross.”

Red-hot anger blurs my vision. I’m instantly reminded of the first time I spent the night at Kiera’s house with her new friends, Sarah Beth, Claire, and Kassidy. I had a stuffy nose, and when I fell asleep, I snored so loud that I even woke myself up. I pretended to still be asleep, though, because all four girls including Kiera were sitting up in a circle, laughing hysterically at me and pretending to snore and drool.

I say nothing back to her. I’ve made the mistake of responding too soon when someone says something rude, and I just end up sounding ridiculous with an awful comeback like Shut your butt, Kiera. That definitely didn’t come out as cool as I’d hoped. I always come up with amazing comebacks . . . ten minutes too late. It’s my greatest strength and my greatest weakness.

When no one’s looking, I brush my finger against my nostrils, careful not to look like I’m picking my nose. Trust me. You don’t want to be the kid who gets caught picking their nose in class. I glance behind me and one row over to where Joseph “Digging for Gold” Russo sits. A black boy with electric-blue glasses that I’ve always thought were super cool, he got caught picking his nose back in third grade, and his life hasn’t been the same since.

As I pull my hand back, I sense a light tickling sensation inside my nostril, and I think it might be time for an internet search on how to get rid of nose hair.

Chapter Four

AKA Patricia

After school, Oscar comes over to Mom’s house so we can commence our after-school routine: pretending to do homework while we watch our favorite TV show, America’s Most Haunted, which has been off the air for something like ten years. Dad says they used to have new episodes every day, and it was even on TV when he and Mom were kids, so we’ve been working our way through every season on Netflix. We’ve made it through seven seasons so far and have gotten approximately 4 percent of our homework done during this time. Dad says we’re procrastinating. I say it’s part of our creative process.