What in the world was that supposed to mean?

Brody walked back toward his friends, and they laughed about something—maybe her—as they headed toward the school’s front doors to leave.

“You think my dad is gonna waste his time at a ‘community meeting’ tonight?” Nessa heard Brody joke as he led his boys off.

“It was really nice” to choose her? It wasn’t “nice”! She had earned it! Brody got his part because he was handsome in that actory way. The boy couldn’t sing his way out of a paper bag! Good thing most of the Harold Hill songs were talky and he could fake his way through them!

Oh man, was she angry.

Nessa tried to think of what her mom liked to say. Find your center. Her mom’s center was probably Jesus. But for Nessa, it was some other feeling, some other strength within her that she didn’t have a name for yet and only felt when she sang.

Find your center, Nessa.

No luck.

Mr. Rhodes was a “good guy” for casting her? What?

Why did she have to exist in a school with boys like Brody in it? And why did his ridiculous opinions have to gnaw at her so relentlessly? Maybe it was because she worried that his opinion mattered the most. If not to her, then still to the rest of the school. The world.

She wanted to scream, but instead she texted Eve.

Got the part! ☺

Then she took a breath, made her face match the smiley emoji she’d just sent, and turned to the other theater kids, ready to celebrate and to pretend that nothing ever hurt.

11

SOPHIE

As her feet slammed against the dirt of the track, an electric shot of pain ricocheted from her heels to the back of her knees. But the pain didn’t matter. It felt good to move so fast.

Just keep running, she told herself. Beat your time. Win. Her legs pulled her ahead of every other kid on the track.

There must be proof somewhere that Eve Hoffman created the list. Evidence. Or maybe Sophie didn’t even need that. Maybe she just needed to start a rumor that Eve wrote it. Everyone would turn on little Eve Hoffman and think, “Of course some freak put Sophie Kane as number two so they could be number one. Because Sophie Kane is obviously number one. And everyone wants to be Sophie.”

Yes, a little whisper in the right gossipy ear could end Eve.

Sophie felt herself sprinting so fast across the track that her feet hardly touched the ground. The chilly air sliced at her cheeks. Soon it would be too cold to run outdoors and they’d have to move to the indoor track.

But what if she got in trouble for spreading lies? Could she get kicked out of school for that? Expulsion might not ruin the life of someone like Eve, who could just switch to a private school or something, but it would make everything Sophie’s mom had done for her pointless.