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Contents (112)
  1. Dedication
  2. Epigraph
  3. Contents
  5. Chapter One
  6. The Cat’s Out of the Box
  8. Chapter Two
  9. The Most Important Meal of the Day
  11. Chapter Three
  12. The Comeback Kid Minus the Comebacks
  14. Chapter Four
  15. AKA Patricia
  17. Chapter Five
  18. One Size Does Not Fit All
  20. Chapter Six
  21. The Difference Between Like and Like-Like
  23. Chapter Seven
  24. Good as Gravy
  26. Chapter Eight
  27. By Invitation Only
  29. Chapter Nine
  30. The Witching Hour
  32. Chapter Ten
  33. 100% Duck
  35. Chapter Eleven
  36. It’s the Thought That Counts
  38. Chapter Twelve
  39. Our Very Best Life
  41. Chapter Thirteen
  42. The Life of the Party
  44. Chapter Fourteen
  45. Ask and You Shall Receive
  47. Chapter Fifteen
  48. R-E-S-P-E-C-T
  50. Chapter Sixteen
  51. Neutral Territory
  53. Chapter Seventeen
  54. A Girl on a Mission
  56. Chapter Eighteen
  57. Paper, Paper, Get Your Paper!
  59. Chapter Nineteen
  60. Risky Business
  62. Chapter Twenty
  63. No Right Choice
  65. Chapter Twenty-One
  66. The Kind of Promise You Can Keep
  68. Chapter Twenty-Two
  69. Behind Door Number Three
  71. Chapter Twenty-Three
  72. Common Ground
  74. Chapter Twenty-Four
  75. Back on the Market
  77. Chapter Twenty-Five
  78. Let It All Out
  80. Chapter Twenty-Six
  81. My Calling
  83. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  84. First-Date Jitters
  86. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  87. Home Sweet Home
  89. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  90. Causing a Scene
  92. Chapter Thirty
  93. A New Kind of Normal
  95. Chapter Thirty-One
  96. Stuck in the Middle
  98. Chapter Thirty-Two
  99. Three Legs Are Better Than Two
  101. Chapter Thirty-Three
  102. Project BFF
  104. Chapter Thirty-Four
  105. Lip-Synching for My Life
  107. Chapter Thirty-Five
  108. Dear Sweet Pea
  109. Author’s Note
  110. About the Author
  111. Copyright
  112. About the Publisher

“We better be.”

Dear Miss Flora Mae,

At the playground yesterday, all the third-grade girls stood around and grabbed their tummies to see how much fat they could fit in their hand. I didn’t want to. But they were all looking at me. So I did it, but I needed two hands. Everyone laughed. My best friend didn’t.

Why can’t I look like them? Mom says everybody has a different body. But who gets to decide what is different and what is not?

Sincerely,

Two Handfuls of Fat

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Chapter Six

The Difference Between Like and Like-Like

Since Miss Flora Mae didn’t say when her editor, Mr. Salazar, would be dropping off her letters, I decide to make a habit of checking her mail every day just to be extra thorough. There’s something sort of exciting about it. We never get anything good in the mail. Or at least I don’t.

On Tuesday at lunch, Oscar and I look for a place where both of us can sit together. We pass a table where Alyssa Chang, Samantha Powell, and Tyler Morales sit. Samantha, who is short and about my size with defined curves and milky white skin, whispers to Tyler, who is Mexican and has short curly hair and a light complexion with a few acne scars on his chin. Alyssa, a tall Chinese girl with long black hair twisted into a neat braid, waves Oscar over.

Oscar waves back. “There’s only one seat open at your table, and me and Sweet Pea want to sit together.”

Alyssa, Samantha, and Tyler all give me the same dry smile.

“Your Christmas-pageant friends don’t like me,” I say as soon as we’re out of earshot.

Oscar rolls his eyes. “They just don’t get people who aren’t into theater like they are.”

“Or they’re trying to steal you away from me?” I say, sort of, but not really, joking.

Oscar laughs. “I’m not a car. I can’t be stolen, Sweet Pea.” He points to the other side of the cafeteria. “Found a spot. Follow me.”

Against my better judgment, I follow Oscar and squeeze into the end of a lunch table beside Greg Gunther with his messy blond hair and black rimmed glasses. Oh, great. My stomach twists into a knot. I nearly yank Oscar over to a spot next to Safiyah Nazir, a short girl with medium brown skin who always wears the funkiest head scarfs, but I don’t move fast enough and the seat is taken. Greg Gunther it is.

Greg Gunther, a tall white boy who’s about as wide as a green bean, moved here halfway through the school year, and his arrival was the most exciting thing to happen to our grade since the class pet snake, Goober, went missing and was found in Alyssa’s cubby, coiled inside her rain boots.

Meeting Greg made me feel like my stomach was full of hummingbirds. Every night I’d go to sleep and pray that I’d wake up and the feeling would magically disappear in the same way I used to hope for green eyes, like Cheese’s.