I laughed. ‘Oh, right. I’m the new kid, remember?’

‘Yeah,’ Adam said. ‘But there’s something about you. I saw real leadership potential in the way you trounced Debbie Mancuso yesterday. Guys always admire girls who look as if any minute they might punch another girl in the mouth. We just can’t help it.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s in the genes.’

‘Well,’ I said with a laugh. ‘I’ll certainly take it under advisement. I did hear a rumour Kelly was planning on blowing the entire class budget on some kind of dance—’

‘Right.’ Cee Cee nodded. ‘She does that every year. The stupid spring dance. It’s so boring. I mean, if you don’t have a boyfriend, what is the point? There’s nothing to do there but dance.’

‘Wait,’ Adam said. ‘Remember that time we brought the water balloons?’

‘Well,’ Cee Cee amended. ‘OK, that year was fun.’

‘I was kind of thinking,’ I heard myself saying, ‘that something like this might be better. You know. A cookout at the beach. Maybe a couple of them.’

‘Hey,’ Adam said. ‘Yeah! And a bonfire! The pyro in me has always wanted to do a bonfire on the beach.’

Cee Cee said, ‘Totally That’s totally what we should do. Suze, you’ve got to run for VP.’

Holy smoke, what had I done? I didn’t want to be sophomore class VP! I didn’t want to get involved! I had no school spirit – I had no opinion on anything! What was I doing? Had I lost my mind?

‘Oh, look,’ Adam said, pointing suddenly at the sun. ‘There it goes.’

The great orange ball seemed to sink into the sea as it began its slow descent below the horizon. I didn’t see any splashing or steam, but I could have sworn I heard it hit the water’s surface.

‘There goes the sun,’ Cee Cee sang softly.

‘Da da da da da,’ Adam said.

‘There goes the sun.’ I joined in.

OK, I have to admit, it was kind of childish, sitting there singing, watching the sun go down. But it was also kind of fun. Back in New York, we used to sit in the park and watch the undercover cops arrest drug dealers. But that wasn’t anywhere near as nice as this, singing happily on a beach as the sun went down.

Something strange was happening. I wasn’t sure what it was.

‘And I say,’ the three of us sang, ‘it’s all right!’

And, strangely enough, at that moment, I actually believed it would be. All right, I mean.

And that’s when I realized what was happening:

I was fitting in. Me, Susannah Simon, mediator. I was fitting in somewhere for the first time in my life.

And I was happy about it. Really happy. I actually believed, just then, that everything was going to be all right.

Boy, was I ever in denial.

Seventeen

My alarm went off at midnight. I didn’t hit the snooze button. I turned it off, clapped my hands to turn on the bedside lamp, rolled over, and stared at the canopy over my bed.