“Good, you’re here.” Mercedes Miller slams the classroom door shut behind her in a huff, like I’m the one who’s late. She’s wearing running shorts, electric-blue sneakers, and a sweatshirt with a brand name across the front—not a cute cat picture like mine. Her fingernails are pale blue. Watching her smooth hair swing around her shoulders, I yank my frizzy ponytail tighter. I wish I could get my hair to do that.

“Did you read through the myths?” she asks, dropping her navy-and-pink backpack on the floor. It’s covered in buttons from state parks and camps. It’s dirty but in a cool, I’m-super-busy-and-active kind of way. “Which one do you think we should do?”

I open the mythology packet. I studied Greek myths last year at my old school, so I’m hoping we can choose one I didn’t learn about. But I can already tell that Mercedes is going to take over. There’s something about Mercedes that makes her hard to contradict.

“We should do the Selene story. The one about the moon,” Mercedes says.

I was right. She’s taking over.

“No one else will do that one. Besides, it’ll be easy to do a cool report. We can do a diorama with lights. I know just what to do.” She taps her blue fingernails on the desk.

I open my packet to the story. “Don’t you think it’s kind of… ” I’m not sure how to say that I don’t want to do that one. “Boring?”

“Boring?” Mercedes looks at me like I just suggested walking around naked.

“Yeah,” I say. “Selene has got to be the most boring myth of all.” I point to the story. “Listen to this: ‘Selene, one of the Titans, was the goddess of the moon. Each night she drove her silver chariot pulled by two white horses across the sky. Her brother, Helios, was the god of the sun, and he drove a golden chariot carried by four horses across the sky each day.’ ” I look up at Mercedes. “See? She’s only interesting because of who her brother was! And, look, the moon only gets two horses while the sun gets four. Totally unfair.”

“Selene is the moon goddess. And that’s cool.”

“But she doesn’t do anything.”

“But she’s a cool woman. In a Greek myth.” Mercedes fans the pages of the packet. “There are hardly any myths about women. And we should be, you know, all about hashtag-women’s-rights and hashtag-girl-power.”

“But—,” I begin. I can tell there’s probably no point in even trying to argue with Mercedes, but I can’t help it. I repeat, “Selene doesn’t do anything.”

“Yes, she does. She drives a chariot around the moon. She is the moon. Don’t you know that the moon controls the tides?”