“I’m looking for something,” I say from under my bed. My body is shoved halfway under, rooting around through the clothes, papers, and books that have somehow accumulated under there since the last time I cleaned. Which was, you know, months ago. My hand brushes against something wet and hard. Hmm.

“What could you possibly be looking for?” she asks. “We have everything we need right here.”

“If you’re referring to the Cheetos,” I say, “I’m sorry, but I think I’m going to need a little more than that.”

“No one,” Clarice declares, “needs more than Cheetos.” She takes one out of the bag and slides it into her mouth, chewing delicately. Clarice is from the South, and for some

reason, when she moved here a couple of years ago, she’d never had Cheetos. We totally bonded over them one day in the cafeteria, and ever since then, we’ve been inseparable. Me, Clarice, and Cheetos. Not necessarily in that order.

“So what are you looking for?” she asks again.

“Just my notebook,” I say. “The purple one.”

“Oooh,” she says. “Is that your science notebook?”

“No,” I say.

“Math?” she tries.

“No,” I say.

“Then what?”

“It’s just this notebook I need,” I say. I abandon the wet, hard mystery object under the bed, deciding I can deal with it later. And by later, I mean, you know, never.

“What kind of notebook?” she presses.

“Just, you know, a notebook,” I lie. My face gets hot, and I hurry over to my closet and open the door, turning my back to her so that she can’t see I’m getting all flushed.

The thing is, no one really knows the truth about what’s in my purple notebook. Not Clarice, not my other best friend, Marissa, not even my sister, Kate. The whole thing is just way too embarrassing. I mean, a notebook that lists every thing that you’re afraid of doing? Like, written down? In ink? Who does that? It might be a little bit crazy, even. Like, for real crazy. Not just “oh isn’t that charming and endearing” crazy but “wow that might be a deep-seated psychological issue” crazy.

But I started the notebook when I was twelve, so I figure I have a little bit of wiggle room in the psychiatric disorders department. And besides, it was totally started under duress. There was this whole situation, this very real possibility that my dad was going to get a job transfer to a town fifty miles away. My whole family was going to move to a place where no one knew us.

So of course in my deluded little twelve-year-old brain, I became convinced that if I could just move to a different house and a different town, I’d be a totally different person. I’d leave my braces and frizzy hair behind, and turn myself into a goddess. No one would know me at my new school, so I could be anyone I wanted, not just “Kate Sellman’s little sister, Eliza.” I bought a purple notebook at the drugstore with my allowance, and I started writing down all the things I was afraid to do at the time, but would of course be able to do in my new school.