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Chapter One

When I left Mr. Poland's classroom, I saw Julie wring for me by my locker, but she was too busy fussing with her hair to notice me walking toward her. She had a little mirror in one hand, her comb in the other, and she was staring at her reflection as if she expected it to speak to her.

"You, my queen, are the fairest of them all " I whispered in the sort of voice I imagined a magic mirror might have.

"Kelly, where have you been? It's ten past three." Julie tossed her hair once more, fluffing it with her hands.

"Mr. Poland wanted to talk to me about my current issues paper. He says I can't prove God is dead, I have to write about something more concrete."

"I knew he wouldn't approve a topic like that."

I shrugged. "He said he wanted us to pick controversial subjects, didn't he?"

"He meant stuff like abortion and child abuse and drunk driving, and you know it." Julie peeked at her reflection one more time, frowned, and thrust her mirror into her other pocket.

"Those are all so boring." I grabbed her comb and ran it through my hair. Why, I don't know. les so short and curly it looks the same no matter what I do to it.

"So? That's what school's all about, doing boring things over and over." Julie snatched her comb and watched me rum the dial on my combination lock. "It prepares you for real life," she went on. "You know, getting a job and going to the same old place every day, cooking the same old meals every night,watching the same old shows on TV till you fall asleep,

"That may be the kind of life you're preparing for but not me." Yanking open my locker, I jumped back as an avalanche of books,papers, gym shoes, and umbrellas spewed out.

"When are you going to clean that locker out, McAllister?' Mr. Gleicher, the principal, appeared out of nowhere, one of his specialties. "les a safety hazard."

He was making it sound like a joke, but I could tell he wasn't pleased. Picking up my scattered belongings, I said, "I know it looks like junk, but it's for a project I'm working on in art, sir. Miss Young wants us to make collages of our most cherished personal belongings, so I'm saving all my old homework papers for it."

Mr. Gleicher frowned which didn't surprise me. A senior might have been able to get away with a little impudence but not a lowly ninth grader, especially one he'd just called a super underachiever in our last interview. Nudging a wizened apple with the toe of his shiny loafer, he said, "What's this?"

I picked it up by the stem and watched it slowly revolve. It gave off a faint odor of decay. "My shrunken head;' I cried. "I thought Id lost it forever! My greatuncle Stanley, the famous explorer, brought it back from the Amazon. les good luck, you know, like a rabbit's foot."

"Quit clowning and throw it in the trash, McAllister" Mr. Gleicher scowled at me. "Im going to inspect this locker tomorrow, and if it isn't in good shape, you can spend an hour in my office after school."

Turning his attention to Julie who hadn't opened her mouth once, he said, "And you, Sinclair. If you find this so entertaining, you'd better make sure your locker is clean too."

As he walked away, Julie stared at me. "Kelly, are you crazy?"

I crossed my eyes and danced around her, giggling. "Who, me? Me crazy? Me?"

She laughed then and helped me clean out my locker. That's why she's been my best friend since kindergarten -- she puts up with every wacky thing I do and never gets mad at me, at least not for long.

"You have four umbrellas, Kelly" Julie held them up. "A red one, a blue one, a big black bumbershoot, and what looks like your dad's golf umbrella."

"You know me. I'm so into fashion I have to color coordinate everything, even my umbrellas."

I struck a pose with the golf umbrella. My dad had just missed it last week and was still searching for it. During his cross-examination, I'd claimed complete ignorance of its whereabouts, having conveniently forgotten I'd been forced to take it to school the last time it rained. What else was I supposed to do? Every other umbrella was already in my locker.

Julie, who of course is truly into fashion, ran a practiced eye over my paint-splattered sweatshirt, faded jeans, and worn-out running shoes. She watched me pull on my father's old army jacket and wrap a long striped scarf around my neck "Right," she said. "Color coordination explains it all. "

As we left school, we cut across the soccer field to take a shortcut home through the woods. One of the nice things about a planned community like Adelphia, maybe the only nice thin& is the open space concept , the brainstorm of one of its developers. The builders had to set aside areas of woods and fields for tot lots and footpaths, and, as a result, you can walk for miles with nothing around you but trees and squirrels and an occasional groundhog or possum.

"So what are you going to write about, Kelly?" Julie turned up the collar of her jacket to shield her face from the cold.

"I don't know." I watched the November sun and wind play with Julie's hair, tossing it and making it shine red-gold.

"Didn't Mr. Poland give you any ideas?"

"Are you kidding? I don't think he'd recognize an idea if it fell out of the sky and hit him on die head." I opened the bumbershoot...