Kira spit her gum out into a napkin, unwrapped another piece, and went to work on it. “I’d offer you some,” she said, “but it’s nicotine. Tastes disgusting. Don’t worry about Tiana. She’s all upspeak, no action.”

Now I smiled. Kira tried to blow an unsuccessful bubble, but Nicorette is not for playing around. So many kids I lived with used that gum. No smoking in the houses. I leaned against a tree beside hers. One of us looked pulled from central casting to star as Pissed-Off Foster Kid on an especially touching episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. As per usual, it was not me.

A group of younger boys ran past, screaming and using sticks like swords, and one of them waved at Kira as a man came running after them, yelling, “Boys! We’ve talked about this!” Kira rolled her eyes.

“My brother. Freshman and instantly popular. You have brothers? Sisters?”

I’ve answered this question hundreds of times, always without thinking, straight-up honest. Foster care. I never lie to new people. Lets people show me right away if they’re going to be dicks about it, or maybe they’ll be nice, though it doesn’t matter anyway when I leave halfway through the year. So I was shocked when I heard myself say instead, “Just me. I’m living with my aunt. She made me come to this.”

What am I doing?

“My mom and dad made me, too,” she said, looking past me to the bouncy houses and food trucks. “We moved here last year from Los Angeles, and they are still shocked—shocked, I tell you—that starting a brand-new high school as a junior hasn’t made me the most popular and well-loved student in a school full of people who’ve grown up together on a damn island and have known each other since kindergarten. They’re baffled.”

“Well,” I said, liking her more every minute, “you need to understand, this picnic is the answer.”

She chewed her gum, turned right to me, and smiled. “Nothing like carnival popcorn and egg-and-spoon races to create lifelong bonds of friendship with a bunch of idiots who would rather be hiding in the bathroom vaping and getting drunk at eleven a.m.”

One more year. Just nine more months of school. Two hundred ten days.

That’s a lot of days.

“Aren’t there any sober non-vapers?” I sighed.

“I mean, in the world at large? Or…” She unwrapped another piece of gum. “Speak of the devil,” she said. I followed her gaze.

Sean.

He came walking to us, across the field, in jeans and a faded Yosemite Valley T-shirt. Still those arms and eyes, dark and directed right at mine even while he hugged Kira hello. “Muiriel?”

“What the…,” Kira said. “You’ve lived here five minutes. How do you know Sean?”