“What does that mean?” Eve asked her.

“Nothing.”

They drove the rest of the way home in silence.

24

SOPHIE

For the next couple of weeks, as the dance approached, Eve sat with Sophie each day. Nessa sat with the Music Man kids, not-so-subtly watching Sophie’s and Brody’s tables.

Sophie gave Eve careful instructions on how to keep Brody’s attention, and she wasn’t doing as horribly as expected.

A few key rules for her time at the lunch table: No reading. No writing, either. No talking about Emily Dickinson or whoever. No mention of the Renaissance Faire. No staring off into space and daydreaming. Cut down on all the awkward pauses.

Who was this alien she’d suddenly become pretend friends with?

It turned out it was impossible to make Eve talk like a normal person. So Sophie spoke for her.

“So you like Brody, huh?” Rose Reed asked Eve one day.

Eve stammered some nonsense, and Sophie pronounced loudly, to the whole table, “I’m totally for it.”

“What about Tariq?” Rose continued, looking past Sophie and right at Eve. “Or Aidan?”

Somehow Rose had inched her way closer and closer to Sophie, and she now sat next to Amina. A month ago she’d been on the ends of the tables. Rose being listed at number four still didn’t compute. Why would Brody be so angry with Sophie that he’d do something like this?

“Aidan’s always staring at you,” Rose gossiped. “Like everybody, I guess!”

“Eve is going to the dance with Brody,” Sophie told Rose.

Rose launched into a monologue about how she couldn’t wait to go with Caleb as Princess Leia and Han Solo.

“She’s a general now,” Eve chimed in. “General Leia Organa.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the table.

“Yeah, for sure!” Rose chirped. “General!”

Sophie saw Liv and Hayley catch each other’s eye and stifle a giggle.

At that point, the boys came to join them during their usual midlunch combination of tables. Brody scrunched himself between Sophie and Eve, talking to both of them about a bunch of stuff that Sophie blocked out. She couldn’t take in one more Michigan football statistic or she’d pass out from boredom.

One good part about not being number one was that it was like a pressure valve had released a little bit. She didn’t need to nod and smile as much. People were less interested in her reaction.

Maybe that’s also why she’d stopped spending as much time on her hair, and started wearing her “weekend” eye shadow, the green color she liked a lot but knew didn’t flatter her eyes as much as the bronze. No one seemed to notice, anyway. Plus, after what the Sophies had said about her in the hallway, she knew their real feelings about how she looked: She knows how to ‘look’ pretty. Not be pretty. I mean, have you ever seen her without makeup?

Sophie liked makeup, okay?

Anyway, she’d return to her full routine once Brody was caught and made irrelevant. For now, it wouldn’t make a difference. Every day, slips of paper that read “#2” were sneaked into the slits in her locker.