It was Diya. She was sitting, alone as always, in a small booth in the back corner. She was staring at a thick packet of paper in front of her, tracing her finger over the top page. Then she shook her head suddenly, like she was coming out of a daydream. She sat up straighter and started doing a series of just-perceptible movements—tilting her head slightly to the left, then arching her back a little, then looking down over her right shoulder. She repeated the pattern a few times before finally stopping to take a bite of waffles.

Margot followed my gaze. “Never seen Robobitch here before,” she said. I’d wondered if having rehearsals together would change Margot’s opinion of Diya, but it hadn’t. I glanced at Jude to see his reaction, but he was stirring his water around with a straw, watching the ice swirl. “God, she’s so in her own world,” Margot went on. “Like, everyone’s here, she could sit with someone, but she’s too good for us.”

Diya probably didn’t want to sit with people who called her Robobitch, but I kept my mouth shut.

“What’s she like in ‘Good Morning’ rehearsals, by the way?” Margot asked, eyes darting between Ethan and Jude. “Good Morning” was the big tap number the three of them did together.

“Robobitch-tastic. Robobitch-errific,” Ethan said.

I looked at Jude again, waiting for him to say something. He was the one who knew her best, right? But he kept quiet, a crease forming between his eyebrows. I rolled my neck out. Why did I care so much? Margot and Ethan and Jude were my friends. Diya was not. I hardly knew her.

I got the sudden urge to text Colleen about all this, but of course I couldn’t. Plus, I hadn’t heard from her since Fly Zone. Eleven days ago. The longest she’d gone without texting. I had an awful feeling I kept trying to ignore, a hollowness in my stomach telling me I’d finally lost her for good.

I couldn’t lose these new friends, too. So I ignored the uneasy feeling and tried to block Diya from my mind. It got easier when our food came, and Jude’s elbow brushed against mine, and he let it stay there for a few seconds before taking it away.

Mrs. Sorenson made it clear that Saturday-morning rehearsals meant things were getting real. “It is January eighteenth, people! Opening night will be here before we know it, and we still have a lot to do,” she said, her heels clicking sharply as she paced across the stage.