Ms. Singh hands out our syllabus, and I flip through it, scanning for all the titles we’re going to read this year. Some of them I don’t recognize, but some I do. There’s one by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote all the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Gram’s favorite Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“And we’ll be doing lots of reader’s theater,” Ms. Singh is saying. “So brush up on your elocution!”

“Electrocution?” yelps a boy in the back, whose name is Austin, I think.

A few other boys giggle.

“Elocution,” says Edie. “It means pronouncing things clearly.”

Darn. I was kind of hoping Edie would be an airhead. It would make it easier not to care if she made fun of me.

“That’s right, Miss . . . ,” Ms. Singh says.

“O’Shea. Edie O’Shea.”

O’Shea. O’Shea. Why does that name sound so familiar?

I whirl halfway around to look at her. She can’t be, can she?

But she has the same wide brown eyes, the same confident gaze, as the man Mom was talking to in the bookstore the day she took me shopping.

“O’Shea like Arnold O’Shea?” I blurt before I can stop myself.

She studies me coolly. “Yes,” she says. “He’s my father. But I don’t like talking about him at school. I don’t want people trying to be my friend just because my dad is famous.”

The way the corners of her lips curl with satisfaction tells a different story.

I blink at Edie for another moment before turning back to face Ms. Singh, cheeks burning again. I don’t think I would want to be friends with Edie if her dad were the King of England.

“I’m sure everyone here will judge you on the merit of your character, Edie,” Ms. Singh says. “Not your father’s job. Now, moving on.”

She assigns us to write an acrostic of our names, which is a poem where, for each letter of your name, you describe yourself with a word or phrase that starts with that letter. Then we have to share.

The girl who said she liked my bag offers to go first. “I’m Fina,” she says.

“F: From California

I: Imaginative

N: Not a morning person

A: Adaptable.”

A few people whisper excitedly when she says “California,” and when Fina is done, Austin calls out, “Gnarly, bro!” in a terrible surfer accent.

Since she volunteered to go first and I’m sitting beside her, I have to go next. “I’m Emma,” I say.

“E: Easy to get along with

M: Messy

M: Moved here this summer

A: Always reading.”

Fina smiles and nods at me, and Ms. Singh says, “Wonderful! A reader!”

I also came up with another one while I was waiting for everyone else to finish their first. One that I’m not about to share with anyone.