“What?” Kate snapped when she couldn’t take it anymore.
Mom’s sigh was so quiet it could hardly be heard. “Why are we always bickering lately?”
“You’re the one who starts it.”
“By saying hello and asking how you’re doing? Yeah, I’m a real witch.”
“You said it, not me.”
“It’s not my fault, you know.”
“What isn’t?”
“That you don’t have any friends. If you’d—”
Kate walked away. Honest to St. Jude, one more if-you’d-only-try-harder speech and she might puke.
Thankfully—for once—Mom didn’t follow her. Instead, she went back into the kitchen, calling out, “Hurry up, Sean. The Mularkey school bus leaves in ten minutes.”
Her brother giggled. Kate rolled her eyes and went upstairs. It was so lame. How could her brother laugh at the same stupid joke every day?
The answer came as quickly as the question had: because he had friends. Life with friends made everything easier.
She hid in her bedroom until she heard the old Ford station wagon start up. The last thing she wanted was to get driven to school by her mom, who yelled goodbye and waved like a contestant on The Price Is Right when Kate got out of the car. Everyone knew it was social suicide to be driven to school by your parents. When she heard tires crunching slowly across gravel, she went back downstairs, washed the dishes, gathered her stuff, and left the house. Outside, the sun was shining, but last night’s rain had studded the driveway with inner-tube-sized potholes. No doubt the old-timers down at the hardware store were already starting to talk about the flooding. Mud sucked at the soles of her fake Earth shoes, making her progress slow. So intent was she on saving her only rainbow socks that she was at the bottom of the driveway before she noticed the girl standing across the street.
She was gorgeous. Tall and big-boobed, she had long, curly auburn hair and a face like Caroline of Monaco: pale skin and full lips and long lashes. And her clothes: low-rise, three-button jeans with huge, tie-died wedges of fabric in the seams to make elephant bells; cork-bottomed platform shoes with four-inch heels; and an angel-sleeved pink peasant blouse that revealed at least two inches of stomach.
Kate clutched her books against her chest, wishing she hadn’t picked her pimples last night. Or that her jeans weren’t Sears Rough Riders. “H-hi,” she said, stopping on her side of the road. “The bus stops on this side.”
Chocolate-brown eyes, rimmed heavily with black mascara and shiny blue eye shadow, stared at her, revealing nothing.
Just then, the school bus arrived. Wheezing and squeaking, it came to a shuddering stop on the road. A boy she used to have a crush on stuck his head out the window and yelled, “Hey, Kootie, the flood’s over,” and then laughed.
Kate put her head down and boarded the bus. Collapsing into her usual front-row seat—by herself—she kept her head bowed, waiting for the new girl to walk past her, but no one else got on. When the doors thumped shut and the bus lurched forward, she dared to look back at the road.