Taking a deep breath, I glanced around the courtyard again, and saw David waving to me, so I joined him and his friends from the newspaper, Michael and Chie. The three of them were sitting underneath the big oak tree on the edge of the courtyard, and when I walked over, David jumped up to pull a jacket out of his bag for me to sit on.

“Thanks,” I told him, arranging myself on his tweed. Chie and Michael, who’d been laughing when I came over, now sat in silence, paying a lot of attention to their lunch.

Apparently I wasn’t going to escape weirdness no matter where I sat.

“I like your necklace, Chie,” I said, figuring flattery was always a good tactic. And seeing as how she was wearing a battered army jacket, an oversized black T-shirt, and a pair of leggings that I was pretty sure violated dress code, the necklace was about the only thing I could compliment.

But as Chie’s fingers trailed over the gold chain, her dark eyes regarded me suspiciously. “I got it at Walmart,” she said, almost like a challenge.

I nodded. “They have pretty stuff. Sometimes.”

David shot me a look that was part exasperation, part amusement, and I gave a little shrug in response. I was all for making an effort to be nice, but I wasn’t going to gush over Walmart. Come on, now.

After clearing his throat, David pulled an apple out of his bag, tossing it back and forth between his hands. “We were talking about what story the newspaper should tackle next.” He nodded at his friends. “Chie has this great idea about how few people in Pine Grove actually recycle, and then Michael wanted to investigate allegations that the cafeteria is still using foods with MSG even after the school board told them they couldn’t.”

I took a long swallow of Diet Coke, hoping that would give me time to think of some reply. In the end, all I came up with was “Okay.”

Chie flicked her bangs out of her eyes. She wasn’t exactly glaring at me, but I was clearly not her favorite person right now. “What, you don’t think those are valid stories?”

Next to her, Michael tugged his sleeves over his hands, his right foot jiggling. He was taller and skinnier than David, something that hardly seemed possible, and his dark hair was thick and shaggy, lying over his collar. In the few months I’d been working in the newspaper room, I wasn’t sure he’d said more than a dozen words to me. I got the sense that I might have scared him a bit.

“It’s not that,” I said to Chie, tucking my hair behind my ears. “But... both of those stories seem depressing.”

And boring, I thought.