Heft by Liz Moore Page A

was not in charge of the girls but I remember the moment when they became aware of me and several small battles broke out amongst them about me. I was certain that I would be in charge of nobody at Pells and that no one would fight for me. I felt very alone.
    My mother left me outside the main entrance.
    Can I help you find your homeroom? she asked. I shook my head violently. I had memorized a map of the school the night before, memorized it completely, the first and second and third floors, so I wouldn’t have to take it out in front of anyone in the hallway. I am very good with maps.
    Have a great day, said my mother, and then she was gone.
    I looked up at the school. Pells High is built like a castle. It has stone walls and turrets that I think are fake or at least I know no way to get inside them, and I have explored every corner of this school. It’s set up on a hill with a perfect lawn that stretches down to the parking lots below. There are tennis courts and playing fields in front of it and more in back. Two low stone walls run the length of a walkway from the main road to the entrance. A driveway snakes up the side. PELLS LANDING HIGH SCHOOL , says a sign by the front door. HOME OF THE GIANTS .
    Two girls walked by me and didn’t look at me.
    It was still early. I sat on one of the stone walls and watched as the slow trickle of students picked up speed. Not one person glanced my way.
    Off the wall, please, said an administrator, and I realized suddenly that it was Dr. Greene.
    Dr.— I said, and then shut up. I hadn’t been recognized and it was better that way.
    I did not want to be too early for homeroom. I lingered outside until I had five minutes to spare and then I walked directly through the green front door, letting the surge of bodies around me swallow me and make me small. The hallways at PLHS are lettered and my homeroom was in D-Hall, which was on the third floor.
    No one was sitting down yet when I walked into homeroom. They were standing in clumps like they were at a party. The girls were shrieking with laughter and the boys were slapping each other’s hands sideways in greeting. I didn’t want to be the only one sitting but I felt I had no choice. I chose a desk and sat at it, rifling through my empty bookbag to give myself something to do. I did not recognize myself in anyone. The girls wore cardigans and dangling silver bracelets.
    All of my classes surprised me. My classmates spoke perfect drawling lazy English. They spoke like rich adults.
    I think, said one, that what Reagan was forgetting was that people give a damn about other people.
    It was astonishing.
    I had signed up for the dumb classes, the level two and three classes. What this means in Pells is classes for very smart and nerdy kids who are sosmart and nerdy that school is uninteresting to them and so they have behavior problems and get bad grades. A boy in my bio class was wearing a cape.
    At lunch I did not even try to go into the cafeteria. I found an empty classroom and sat down and put my head on my desk. If anyone asked I was going to say I was feeling sick. I hiked the sleeves of my giant white T-shirt over my shoulders and folded the waistband of my basketball shorts over once and then twice.
    That night I went home and begged my mother for new clothes. I begged her not to make me go back to school without good clothes. She was actually happy. She never liked the stuff I wore, the baggy stuff. It was a nice night with her. We went to the mall and I used money I had saved from mowing lawns. I took it out of my wallet and we went to Target, where I bought shorts like the ones I’d seen the other boys wearing. We bought one pair of cheap brown flip-flops (since then I have learned that these are a giveaway, that these are the things that need to be expensive and leather), and a few T-shirts with collars. I let the clothes fit me. I let the shirts be tight across my shoulders and I let the shorts come to just above my knees. On