I squeeze the strap of Gram’s bag and pretend it’s her hand.

Once I have my homeroom assignment, I burrow my way through the crowds straight to class, where Mr. Owens, a bald man with a walrus mustache, checks my name off his list with a sleepy sweep of his hand.

By the time I’ve been to math and health, I don’t feel so nervous anymore. Instead, I feel bored. It seems like every teacher has memorized the same first-day-of-school speech about citizenship, hard work, and “building a strong school culture.” My thoughts start to drift back to my skin, and I make myself think instead about the story I started, the one that’s waiting for me in the sycamore hollow.

It felt so good, writing in the journal again. The thing is, I have no clue what to write next.

When I first got the journal, I told Gram I didn’t know how to write a story on my own, so we always wrote them together. I would write a chapter over the weekend, and when I went home for the week, Gram would read what I had written and write the next chapter, until we finished the whole story together.

I think about Ivy and her gran all through social studies, but by the time the bell rings, I still don’t have any good ideas.

Thankfully, there’s only English left before lunch.

In the first stroke of luck I’ve had all day, my English teacher actually seems to be an interesting human being. She doesn’t look that much older than Lily. She’s wearing trendy glasses with frames too big for her face and chunky leather boots.

“Cool bag,” she says as I walk in. “I’m Ms. Singh.”

“Emma,” I say, smiling for the first time all day. “Cool boots.”

Behind me, I hear a familiar laugh and turn to see Edie walking in. I sit down, and to my surprise, she takes the seat next to me. Her friend with the pink backpack has followed her in and sits down on her other side.

“I like your bag, too,” murmurs Edie, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Where’d you get it? The dumpster behind the Salvation Army?”

“Must have been right next to that ugly sweater,” her friend adds.

I feel my cheeks go hot as they both start to giggle. “No,” I say. “They were my gram’s.”

Edie opens her mouth to say something else, but before she can, a new girl slides into the seat in front of me. “Vintage,” she says. “Nice.”

She has dark curls and a wide smile, and glasses like Ms. Singh’s.

Edie shoots me a last smirk. And I think maybe I was right to be nervous about today.

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