I smile so big, just like I do every time I hear from Mai. She’s been my best friend since kindergarten. I needed this message with the yellow flower, green heart, unicorn, and shooting star. Mai loves emojis. At least this one thing is the same from my old life.

And I really need something normal this morning. I’m dreading my second day. All night I tossed and turned. My pillow kept falling on the floor and my blanket kept slipping sideways. When I did finally fall asleep, I dreamed I was trying to open my locker in an underwater school. I woke up feeling soggy.

When I go to the kitchen for breakfast, no one in my new family notices me at first, not even my mom. She’s sipping coffee and staring out the window at the gray clouds.

“He’s widowed,” she told me before I met Bob for the first time. “You know what that means?”

I nodded. Did I know what that meant? “Um, but you can explain it,” I said.

“It means his wife died. She died when his youngest was three years old. He has two kids.” At the time, I hadn’t even known if he had girls or boys. I had hoped there were girls, of course. What only child hasn’t wished for a sister?

Instead, I got stepbrothers. Two of them.

Ten-year-old Kenny is dripping Cheerios and milk all over the Batman comic book he’s reading. My stepdad, Bob, is buttering his youngest son’s bread.

“Toast,” Bob says to Lucas.

“Most!” rhymes Lucas. He laughs like it’s the most hilarious thing in the world.

“Jam?”

“Ham!” shouts Lucas. I’m already learning that Lucas never speaks, only shouts.

More laughing.

“Thumb,” says Bob, licking jelly off his fingers.

Dumb, I think to myself. I don’t dare say it aloud. I glance at my mom.

“There you are,” she says, noticing her only daughter at last. “Ready for day two?”

“I am!” shouts Lucas, who has decided he loves kindergarten.

“I’m just glad we got two extra weeks of vacation,” says Kenny.

I have to agree with him. Due to my mom’s confusion and Bob’s absentmindedness, all three of us missed the first two weeks of school.

“But school always starts after Labor Day!” my mom said when we were still at the rented cabin and Kenny had said how excited he was to miss school for the wedding.

“Not in California,” Kenny said. “The first day for the elementary school was yesterday. Probably the same for her.” Kenny shrugged his shoulder in my direction. Even though we had been playing chess for ten days by then, he still avoided looking directly at me.

“Did you know about this?” My mom looked at Bob.

“I’m going to miss kindergarten?” Lucas cried.