Oh well. Good thing I wasn’t in school to make friends.

Seven

And yet I did. Make friends, I mean.

I didn’t try to. I didn’t even really want to. I mean, I have enough friends back in Brooklyn. I have Gina, the best friend anybody could have. I didn’t need any more friends than that.

And I really didn’t think anybody here was going to like me – not after having been assigned a thousand-word essay because of what happened when I sat down. And especially not after what happened when we were informed that it was time for second period – there was no bell system at the Mission School, we changed class on the hour, and had five minutes to get to where we were going. No sooner had Mr Walden dismissed us than the albino girl turned around in her seat and asked, her purple eyes glowing furiously behind the tinted lenses of her glasses, ‘Am I supposed to be grateful to you, or something, for what you said to Debbie?’

‘You,’ I said, standing up, ‘aren’t supposed to be anything, as far as I’m concerned.’

She stood up, too. ‘But that’s why you did it, right? Defended the albino? Because you felt sorry for me?’

‘I did it,’ I said, folding my coat over my arm, ‘because Debbie is a troll.’

I saw the corners of her lips twitch. Debbie had swept up her books and practically run for the door the minute Mr Walden had dismissed us. She and a bunch of other girls, including the pretty tanned one who’d had the empty seat next to her, were whispering amongst themselves and casting me dirty looks over their Ralph Lauren sweater-draped shoulders.

I could tell the albino girl wanted to laugh at my calling Debbie a troll, but she wouldn’t let herself. She said, fiercely, ‘I can fight my own battles, you know. I don’t need your help, New York.’

I shrugged. ‘Fine with me, Carmel.’

She couldn’t help smiling then. When she did, she revealed a mouthful of braces that winked as brightly as the sea outside the window. ‘It’s Cee Cee,’ she said.

‘What’s Cee Cee?’

‘My name. I’m Cee Cee.’ She stuck out a milky-white hand, the nails of which were painted a violent orange. ‘Welcome to the Mission Academy.’

At nine o’clock, Mr Walden had dismissed us. By nine-oh-two, Cee Cee had introduced me to twenty other people, most of whom trotted after me as we moved to our next class, wanting to know what it was like to have lived in New York City.

‘Is it really,’ one horsy-looking girl asked, wistfully, ‘as . . . as . . .’ She struggled to think of the word she was looking for. ‘As . . . metropolitan as they all say?’

These girls, I probably don’t have to add, were not the class lookers. They were not, I saw at once, on speaking terms with the pretty tanned girl and the one whose fingers I’d threatened to break after school, who were the ones so well-turned out in their sweater sets and khaki skirts. Oh, no. The girls who came up to me were a motley bunch, some acned, some overweight, or way, way too skinny. I was horrified to see that one was wearing open-toe shoes with reinforced toe pantyhose. Beige pantyhose, too. And white shoes. In January!