Nova did not react.

“You go stand over there and scream your biggest scream.”

Nova did not react.

“Go!” Mallory pushed her toward the center of the room. “Scream. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Nova walked ten steps. She took a big breath. She turned. Mallory nodded.

Nova screamed.

Everyone in class stopped what they were doing to look at her. She did not like it, so many people looking. She covered her ears and squinted. She wanted to disappear.

Behind Carrot Krystle and Polka Dot Denise, Mallory was fiddling with the knob on the oven. She shot Nova a thumbs-up and gestured for her to come back. Nova sprinted back to her station, trying to forget the feeling of all those eyes on her.

“Keep working, class,” said Not-Strega-Nona pleasantly. “Everything’s fine!”

“Miss Chambers said not to touch this oven.” Mallory smirked. “She didn’t say anything about that oven.”

“Ehh?” asked Nova, meaning “Why?” Mallory, somehow, seemed to understand.

“Those girls are mean. I don’t like them calling Mary-Beth a spaz and I don’t like them calling you a retard. You are my friends, and I don’t let anybody be mean to my friends.”

“Ah,” said Nova. She liked being called a friend.

Ten minutes after Mary-Beth and Miss Chambers returned, a timer beeped. Miss Chambers helped Mary-Beth take out the cookies so they could cool. On the other side of the workstation, Carrot Krystle was sniffing the air.

“Does something smell…funny?” she asked.

“Pretty funny,” said Mallory in that low voice that gave Nova goose bumps.

“It smells like…like something’s burning,” said Polka Dot Denise.

“Oh, no!” Carrot Krystle yanked down hard on the oven door. Black smoke came spiraling out, making her cough. Miss Chambers quickly closed the oven door with the charred cookies still inside and turned the dial to Off.

“They’re ruined!” screeched Polka Dot Denise. “Krystle, what did you do?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything!”

“The oven was on four fifty? You put it on four fifty?”

“No! You must have touched it when I wasn’t looking!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not, you liar!”

“You must have, you…you…you airhead!” Carrot Krystle shoved her friend, hard.

“Nice one!” Polka Dot Denise pushed back. “Not!”

“Girls!” Not-Strega-Nona rushed over to break up the scuffle. She opened the oven just long enough to remove the smoldering cookie sheet, which she set on the stove. Several kids pinched their noses. Miss Chambers opened a window.

“Nasty!” said a tall freckle-faced girl. “Krystle, your cookies reek worse than a tire fire!”

“It’s not my fault!” shouted Carrot Krystle.

“Too bad,” said Mallory. “Even us retards know not to turn the oven up so high.”

“You did this!” Carrot Krystle pointed at them.

“Don’t be a jerk, Krystle!” said Polka Dot Denise. “They wouldn’t.”