“It wasn’t a question,” Mrs. Sloane said. “More of an observation. That the end of the year proved challenging for you.”

That was a school word, challenging.

Last year, Annabelle’s English teacher had made the class brainstorm transition words they could use in their essays—however and as a result and in addition. Annabelle imagined a classroom full of teachers brainstorming words they could use to keep the kids who weren’t smart from feeling too bad. Challenge was the big winner. The comments on her report cards were always peppered with different forms of that word. Challenge, challenging, challenges. And then there was the old classic: developing.

Boys had looked at her differently ever since her body had started to “develop.” That’s the way Mia’s mom had put it, when they’d gone on that shopping trip and Annabelle had come out of the dressing room wearing that striped shirt. That something that clingy was going to draw a lot of attention since she was so “developed.” When it came to her body, Annabelle was ahead of Mia and almost everybody else. When it came to school, she was always stuck “developing”—her reading skills, her understanding of essay writing, her ability to conjugate Spanish verbs—and never quickly enough.

“What do you think we should do?” Mom asked Mrs. Sloane.

“Well, there are a few things Ms. Ames suggested,” Mrs. Sloane started. “For one thing, there’s summer work.”

Mrs. Sloane was wearing a necklace with a thick silver chain and a stone in the front. It looked like the pink quartz rocks that were buried in the sand all over Gray Island, except it was bigger than any stone Annabelle had ever found, and it was a perfect oval.

Mom was off again, listing all the work Annabelle was doing with Janine, as if that might earn Annabelle bonus points for next year. Or earn Mom bonus points for doing so much to help. Make it clear that it wasn’t because of her that Annabelle had so much trouble.

Mom had never had this kind of trouble in school. She’d gone to a great college, gotten a great marketing job in New York City right after she finished. It was Dad who hadn’t even made it through his sophomore year at his much-less-impressive college.

Mrs. Sloane nodded, and Annabelle focused on the way the iridescent flecks and swirls in the stone on her necklace caught the light. She was almost certain it was pink quartz, which the waves and sand wore down into smooth, roundish pebbles. She couldn’t understand how it was so big and smooth, though.

“That’s a great start, certainly,” Mrs. Sloane said. “It’s important for Annabelle to have supports in place to keep up with the required work. But Ms. Ames and I think we’re at a point where we need to step back and address some of the underlying issues that are leading to Annabelle’s difficulties.”

Difficulties. Another word Annabelle heard a lot of. Not quite as gentle as challenges, so teachers only pulled it out when they really wanted to make a point.