On the other side of the door, light trickles down between the vines that crisscross over a glass ceiling. The warmth hits her next as the humidity escapes from the greenhouse. An actual greenhouse. How is this possible? she wonders.

Is that music? Because she’s sure it sounds like her favorite Beyoncé song . . .

Hafsah steps forward . . .

Another town.

Another campus.

Another crosswalk.

Samantha stands on the other side of the street. Ridgewood Junior High is just a few steps away, but she can’t seem to make her feet work.

She looks down.

Her jeans—faded, stained, full of holes—are too tight.

What will Rachel say to her today? What mean joke will she make at Samantha’s expense?

She takes a deep breath, though, and lifts her chin up. “Head up high,” her mother told her that morning. “Don’t ever let them see you down.”

Samantha crosses the street. People giggle at her, badly hiding it behind their hands. She ignores them. She pays no mind to Ethan, who asks her if she stole her outfit from a thrift store, or to Rachel, who quips back, “They wouldn’t even take Sam’s clothes if she paid them to.”

She knows that she can hide in the bathroom until the homeroom bell rings, and she knows how to time it exactly so that she is the last student, so that Ms. Tremaine will start her lecture and no one will be able to make any more comments. Before she can get there, though, someone yells something crude at her, and she picks up the pace, trying to outrun the comments about how it looks like she rolled in mud, and she is so flustered that she pulls open the wrong door. It must be the wrong door, because she finds herself in a massive walk-in closet.

Racks and racks of clothes line the walls. The room is gently lit so that it’s not too bright, not too dark. In the center are a giant standing mirror and a couple empty racks.

Samantha peeks back into the hallway, then into the closet again. What is this place? The teachers’ lounge? No, that doesn’t even make sense.

She lets the door close behind her as she approaches a rack. There is an adorable pair of dyed lavender jeans on the end, and when she looks at the tag . . .

It’s her size.

So is the maroon shirt next to it.

As is the sparkly dress that she immediately wants to wear, to twirl around in, to feel like she’s a star at the center of the universe.

It’s all her size—as if this place was designed perfectly for her . . .

Another place.

Another time.

Another.

DeShawn shoves his way past his teacher, past the other kids who are yelling at him, their voices grating in his head. How can a sound hurt so much?

The lights are too bright.