I was several chapters into my book when Ms. Garrett put her bony hand on my shoulder, startling me. I cringed and pulled away from her, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t say anything she’d think was rude. I didn’t want her to call my mom. I touched my opposite shoulder to even myself out, looking down at my notebook and noticing that I’d drawn a few tiny tornadoes while I’d been reading.

“Sorry, Frances,” she said, looking embarrassed.

“My name is Frankie,” I snapped accidentally. Thankfully, she let it go.

“Again, I apologize. I know you don’t like when people touch you, but you didn’t answer when I said your name.” I strained my neck looking up at her because Ms. Garrett is skyscraper tall (not literally, of course). She kept talking. “Uh, I notice that you’re reading your book for English, which is great, but I wanted to make sure you’ve finished your math homework. We only have a few minutes left in the period and Mr. Hubble asked me to check with you. He said that yesterday, you—”

“It’s in my backpack,” I interrupted, which wasn’t a lie. It was in my backpack. It was also unfinished.

“I see,” Ms. Garrett said. She tilted her head to the side like my dog does sometimes.

Behind Ms. Garrett, across the room in the regular rows, several kids were watching us. Tess smiled at me with her mouth but not her eyes, a halfway smile, which was confusing; Kai smiled at me with his mouth and his eyes, an all-the-way smile, which was confusing in a different way; and Mia didn’t smile, just stared, which wasn’t confusing in the least. I frowned at all of them and they went back to their classwork.

Ms. Garrett opened her mouth to say something else—maybe to ask to see my homework—but the announcement bell chimed, and the office lady started talking. That was unexpected, because it wasn’t announcement day, which is Tuesday. And if we had had announcements, they would have been at the beginning of the period, not the end.

“Attention, students and staff,” the office lady said. “Please proceed immediately in an orderly fashion to the auditorium for an address from Principal Golden. Thank you.”

Ms. Garrett looked at me blankly for a few seconds like she was stunned, but then she told everyone to get up and move toward the auditorium. Kai smiled at me all-the-way again as he left the classroom with his friends. Confused by how I felt about that, I waited until everyone else left, too, and then went into the hall.