“Look,” she said, shrugging again. “When you disappeared like that I realized that you’re, like, one of the only interesting people around here. It was boring without you, Sal—Amy.” She popped her finger back in her mouth again, chewing away at her nail and grinning at me. “Gonna be late for homeroom. See you around,” she said, and sauntered away as Dustin Jr. trailed spit down her shoulder.

So that was pretty weird. But it was nowhere close to the weirdest thing that would happen to me that day.

NINE

Mr. Strachan had given my mom my old schedule, and in each classroom, the story was the same. A loud buzz of chatter would die down immediately as soon as I walked in the door. Everyone—and I mean everyone—would turn to look at me as I slunk toward my seat, doing my best to pretend I was invisible. A few seconds later, the talk would start again—this time, low whispers I wasn’t meant to hear, although I couldn’t help catching some of it. “Went crazy and . . .” “Totally ran away with some guy, just like her mom . . .” “Was blackout drunk for, like, the entire month and then lied about being in a hospital . . .” Okay, so nobody bought the hospital story. Too damn bad. I sat with my back straight and my eyes fixed on the front of the room, I wrote down my homework assignments, and I spoke when I was spoken to—which was never, conveniently leaving me plenty of time to think about how I was going to start my search for the shoes. Even my teachers wouldn’t meet my eyes. Whatever, I thought. It’s not like I had friends before either. At least this time no one was throwing food at me, or yelling “Get those shoes at Kmart, Salvation Amy?” as I tried to slink by. Being a total pariah had its definite advantages.

At lunch, I made my way through a cloud of silence that followed me across the room and exploded into hissing whispers the moment I passed. I kept my head high and my back straight, pretending I was walking across Dorothy’s banquet hall. I found an empty table by the window at the far corner of the cafeteria and pulled my sandwich out of the paper lunch bag my mom had packed for me. A scrap of paper fluttered to the floor, and I recognized my mom’s loopy cursive when I bent down to pick it up. I love you, Amy. I’m so glad you’re home.

Notes in my bag lunch? She was working her way up to Oscar material for her new role as Concerned and Caring Mom. But even as I tried to shrug off her effort, some part of me was seriously touched. I remembered the mom who’d baked a cake for my ninth birthday party and poured me a bucketful of Sprite to drown my sorrows when no one showed up. But I couldn’t think like that, I reminded myself. I couldn’t. I tucked the note in my jeans pocket.

And then, to my total surprise, two figures sank down into chairs on either side of me. “Hi, Amy,” Dustin said shyly. “Hi, again,” Madison said. “Lrrbbble,” added Dustin Jr.

“Okay,” I said, putting down my sandwich. “Quit screwing with me, Madison. Maybe you’re having some kind of postpartum thing, only instead of getting really depressed you got all friendly. But I am not interested. What do you want?”

“I want to eat lunch with you,” she said calmly. Her own lunch—a roast beef sandwich on thick, expensive white bread—the kind you bought by the loaf at the grocery store and sliced yourself—was packed neatly into a Tupperware container that had room for carrot sticks and apple slices, too. She offered Dustin Jr. a carrot stick but he let loose with a lusty wail.

“Isn’t he too little for solid food?” I asked cautiously. Madison shrugged.

“I’m trying to get him to advance,” she said. “Breastfeeding totally sucks.” And then, without further ado, she pulled up her shirt as if daring me to say something. Dustin Jr. latched on to his lunch with gusto.

Dustin Sr. had opted for cafeteria pizza. The smell was something else. If there was anything that would seal my decision to bail on Kansas forever, it was cafeteria pizza. “Mmmmm,” he said unconvincingly.

“D, that stuff is major no way,” Madison said, rolling her eyes.

“No, seriously, rewind,” I said. “Why are you guys here? What is this about?” I waited for the other shoe to drop. For Madison to play whatever mean joke she had up her sleeve, or to say something horrible about my hair or my clothes, or drag the whole cafeteria over to laugh at me.

Dustin looked between us nervously. “It’s not like that, Sal—um, Amy,” he said. “I mean, not anymore. I know Madison was kind of uncool to you—”

“Kind of uncool?” For all the things I’d endured in Oz, I couldn’t keep the hurt out of my voice. Madison had made my life in Kansas a living hell. She was the one who’d made sure I didn’t have any friends. She was the one who made sure I got mocked every day for my secondhand clothes. She was the one who’d spread rumors about all the times my mom had come home too drunk to even walk straight, or with strange guys who didn’t even stay the night. I don’t even think she knew how close to the truth they were. <