Lucky for me, I was in Ms. Trepky’s homeroom, so that meant two classes with this new girl.

“We are excited to have you in our class,” said Ms. Trepky. The only open desk in the room was the one next to me, and Ms. Trepky motioned to it. “Please take a seat,” she said.

For a moment I was worried Ms. Trepky would assign Talia some kind of buddy or partner. Working with partners made my stomach flutter, because I always ended up worrying more about being a fun partner than about actually doing the assignment. I shouldn’t have stressed about it, though. Ms. Trepky simply made sure Talia was settled and had her materials, and then kept on with the lesson. She did ask Talia and me to swap phone numbers, so Talia could call someone if she needed help understanding her catch-up work or something, but that was it. I should have known. Ms. Trepky knew we were in seventh grade, not third.

Later, when the bell rang, Ms. Trepky spoke over the jostle and bustle of packing students. “Ms. Latu, if you will come see me for a moment or two, I will catch you up on the latest assignments. And Ms. Monroe.” I stopped. She was looking at me down her long nose. “I suggest rereading the section on Eleanor Roosevelt. There’s a quote there you might find interesting.”

After History it was lunchtime, and I took my cheese-and-pepperoni sandwich into the library. I eat lunch in the library a lot. The librarian is Mr. Duncan, a smiling old man with deep copper, ashy-knuckled hands that always pat the top of the stack of books he hands me like it’s a treasure, and I suppose it is. I don’t know if eating lunch in the library is against the rules, but he never makes me leave.

In the library, there’s a sign above the door with cartoon stars with big silly faces, and it says BRIGHTEN YOUR MIND WITH A BOOK. Real stars don’t have five points like the cartoon stars, though. They’re balls, big burning balls of fire. I wonder if we made up those five-pointed stars because then it looks like stars have a head and two arms and two legs, like we do. That’s the kind of thing I think about when I eat lunch in the library.

A library as your best friend is great, but it does have some downsides. I can’t text the library. I can’t tell it the joke my dad told me about how the paramecium crossed the road because it was stuck to the chicken’s butt. I can’t go with it to parties, and it’s not someone for me to talk to in the crowd.

Last year, one of the teachers asked me who my best friend at school was. I had a friend in third grade who would sometimes come over to play, but she moved away the next year. I told him that my new best friend was probably the library. It doesn’t even bother me to read about spinal fluid or fungus (or sometimes Eleanor Roosevelt, who actually seems pretty cool) while I eat. When I told my teacher that he looked at me for a moment with a sort of sad-ish face, almost like he was going to pat me on the head, and then he told me I should try playing outside with the other kids at lunch. That’s what made me realize maybe I shouldn’t tell people that the library is my best friend.