“I thought today was all about school unity,” I say as we navigate through the sea of red, narrowly dodging a squirt of red ketchup flying toward a wayward freshman.

“Different kind of unity,” Piper says before going into her math class. “You dress like everyone in your class, swear a blood oath, and then mercilessly persecute anyone who looks different. It’s the Viking way.”

Before I get to earth science, Sage scurries up to me, her books clasped tight against her chest and her eyes blinking rapidly.

“Kenzie’s out for blood,” she says. “Your blood.”

I try to act unfazed.

“So what? She’s going to ghost me like she did Piper? We weren’t that close anyway.”

Sage tilts her head to the side like she’s trying to figure me out.

“Kenzie didn’t ghost Piper,” she says. “Piper cut her off. When we went to visit her in the hospital, she wouldn’t see us.”

I stare at her. “Wait, what?”

“Acted like we died in the crash. Kenzie took it the worst, obviously, because she thought Piper blamed her. Now they’re both too busy blaming each other to ever back down.”

Her voice trails off just as Kenzie turns the corner toward us. I brace myself for a showdown right here in the middle of the science corridor. Shouting match? Hair pulling? Girls don’t actually throw punches, do they?

I force my spine a little straighter as Kenzie nears, feigning a fraction of the boldness I felt Saturday night. My hand balls into a fist, my fingernails digging into my palm.

Kenzie looks past me.

“Sage.” She says her name flatly, like she’s summoning a schnauzer. Sage heels, crinkling her eyebrows together to show me she has no choice but to follow.

I hurry to class, jumping at the sound of slamming lockers and checking over my shoulder. When Asad slaps me on the back, I almost leap out of my skin.

“Whoa, settle down there, killer,” he says, helping me steady the tray of mealworms.

I write our daily worm report, describing the dry, discarded skin because Magical Mr. Mistoffelees and Macavity are molting again. What if I could crawl out of my skin, shed it behind me like these disgusterous guys like it’s no big deal?

Do they even realize the incredible gift of starting over?

Wearing the same-color T-shirt suddenly makes everyone completely focus-impaired, but Mr. Bernard makes a good effort to use our color identification system as an object lesson for biological survival.

“As humans, we form communities based on similar attributes. Your shirts show to which community you belong,” he says. “For every species on the planet, finding this community is not a luxury; it’s an essential element of survival.”