In December I was caught stealing at school.

A teacher caught me stealing oatmeal cookies from the cafeteria. I thought I was truly busted then, but they didn't get it-not my parents, not my teachers, not the princ.i.p.al. They thought I was on some kind of dare; they didn't really understand why I was taking the food. Why would they? It's not like I was poor and hungry. Almost everyone who goes to my school has parents who make a ton of money, so it had to be a joke, right?

I'd stolen the cookies (and had been stealing them for weeks before I was caught) for the same reason I'd stolen food from two other stores since that first market: it took more and more food for my SR to work.

I needed it to work.

I needed it more than I needed to be a good, honest person who'd never dream of stealing. I'd left that girl behind a long time ago.

I couldn't stand to be in my own skin without the SR.

My parents were furious at my stealing and they agreed to the school's punishment for me: I had to spend my lunch hours working in the cafeteria, first helping serve, then cleaning tables. I had to wear a hair net. I thought Brooke would disown me then (and I almost wished she would), but she, Brittany, and Bebe thought it was cool, like I was some kind of rebel.

You know what was so great about it...well, other than the fact that it became even easier to steal food? I didn't have to eat lunch with those girls anymore. Not having to sit with them felt like taking off a heavy backpack after a whole day of hiking. Back in the kitchen, I didn't have to be the Hannah they wanted.

It also meant I couldn't eat with Kevin, though.

The school kitchen was a whole different world. A world I loved. During the actual lunch period while my cla.s.smates were out there eating, I was hidden, wearing my plastic ap.r.o.n, hair net, and gloves. There was something so immediate about it, keeping the bins filled as I chopped tomatoes or onions, making sure no one had to stand there and wait too long for what they'd ordered. It gave me that same sense of satisfaction that making my cities used to: I got to see a finished product. I got to see a world functioning with everything in order and control.

That first day I reported to duty, it was the piano-playing scholarship boy who showed me what to do. By then, I knew his name was Jasper.

Jasper Jones. Is that a cool name or what?

I usually only saw him sitting down-at the piano or in cla.s.s. I knew he was tall because he always looked uncomfortable folded into school furniture, but it startled me to realize I needed to look up at him. He was one of the few people who was taller than me.

From cla.s.s, I already knew he was smart. Really smart. Like a brainiac. But slow. Not slow like mentally slow, but slow in processing. Slow in responding. It took him a while to answer. Brooke would always mutter, "Like maybe this year, moron."

I had noted two things about him: One, he always did his funny head toss to clear the hair out of his eyes before he spoke. And two, he never spoke until he was certain what he was going to say. Like, Brooke, Brittany, and Bebe always did that annoying thing where they shot up their hands first in cla.s.s, but when the teacher called on them, they'd do that ridiculous, "Well, you know, I, like, I know what the answer is, I just, you know, don't know how to explain it. It's just, like, well, you know (giggle)...um, never mind."

How did the teachers not smack them?

Jasper's hand never shot up. But teachers called on him anyway, especially after two or three other students had flailed around and gotten it wrong. The teacher would turn to Jasper like he was a lifeline. "Jasper? What do you think?"

He was usually right. He always had something interesting to say...it just took him a while to form his thoughts and speak them. The teachers didn't mind waiting for him.

That quality led other kids-well, the mean kids I'd aligned myself with-to mock him as stupid, an idiot. I watched Bebe's face once when Brooke said of Jasper, "What a r.e.t.a.r.d."

I saw the flinch. I flinched too. We made eye contact, but Bebe didn't know I'd seen that picture of her brother. I held that picture in my heart, though, to remember there were complicated sides to everyone. Maybe even Brooke.

I wanted to shrivel up and blow away when I realized Jasper was the person a.s.signed to train me in the kitchen.

"I'm Hannah," I said. I remembered all those horrible times my group had left a revolting mess on the tables. I wanted to add, "I'm sorry."

He looked at me a moment, then smiled. He had a slow smile, like my mom's, only his started in just one corner of his mouth. "I know," he said, with this crooked grin, as if it amused him. "I'm Jasper."

"I know," I said in the same tone he'd used, my old Hannah creeping back for a second.

That made him nod and say, "Well, then, let's see what else you know."

Not much, but I was a quick learner. I surprised myself. It was almost as if when I wasn't around Brooke, Brittany, and Bebe, my brain returned to me. I was always in a white hazy panic when I was around them: what was I going to do wrong, what was I going to say wrong, how was I going to be humiliated, how was Brooke going to punish me for Kevin's attention today? Away from them, I was competent again.

"Hannah kicked b.u.t.t today," Jasper said later to the kitchen staff. "She's not what we expected."

Had they been talking about me? I felt my face burn.

When the adult staff had all gone back to their work and weren't paying any attention anymore, I whispered, "I'm sorry. I know what you think. But-but I'm not like that."

He'd taken off the bandana he wore in the kitchen, so his hair hung in his eyes again. He tossed his head, then tilted it. His eyes were the color of iced tea. Up close I saw that one iris had a triangle of gold in it, like a slice of pie had been taken, revealing the yellow dish beneath. "You know what I think," he repeated. I couldn't read his meaning.

"What did you expect?" I asked.

He blinked. "When people have to work back here as punishment, it usually turns out to be punishment for us. But you were good."

"Oh." How stupid was I, thinking that anyone paid attention to me or my mean friends?

He kept gazing down at me, his face open. "You're not like what?"

I tried to will the red to stay out of my face. "You know, like"-I tilted my head out toward the tables-"those girls I sit with at lunch. I'm-I'm not like them."

He gazed at me a minute. "The B-Squad?" he asked.

"B-Squad?" I thought he meant bee squad, which really made perfect sense. All that venom.

"Yup," he said, and turned away from me, back to work. He was unloading a cart of stuff that had just been delivered at the back door onto the pantry shelves, even though the head woman, Pam, had told us we could go.

"Why do you call them that?" I asked.

"One guess." He picked up the biggest can of green beans I'd ever seen and hefted it onto the shelf.

"Because we're...b.i.t.c.hes?"

He stopped, tossed his hair out of his eyes, and gazed at me again. Then his lopsided smile emerged and he laughed. "Ha! Sure, that works too!" He returned to the cans.

"Why, then?"

"Because their names all start with B and I can't tell them apart. They look the same, they dress the same, they talk the same, they think the same."

I caught myself grinning, even though technically, this criticism applied to me as well. "They don't look the same," I chided him, but teasing. "Bebe is..."

He stopped again, the top shelf of his cart empty. "Bebe is what?"

"You know."

He tilted his head. "She's what?" I caught a little edge in his voice. He was so hard to read!

"She's black!" I said. "So you can tell her apart. I mean they don't look the same."

He waved his hand, as if brushing away a pesky fly. "I didn't mean anything that surface. I can't see past the stuff on the inside. There's not one individual thought between them."

Wow. "I-I thought everyone-You don't think they're pretty? Bebe's the prettiest."

He snorted. "Pretty is as pretty does."

I gasped. "My mom says that all the time."

He studied me. "Your mom is Annabeth Anderson?"

I nodded, then braced for it.

"Your mom is one smart woman."

Not "beautiful" not "gorgeous" not "hot." Not the crude things I'd overhead Max say.

Smart.

I stood there, wondering how to end this conversation and get Jasper out of the cafeteria. I couldn't leave first because I still had a mission there in the kitchen.

He'd almost finished unloading the cart. "So why'd you say 'we,'" he asked, "even though you said you weren't like them?"

Before I could answer, Pam came out from the main kitchen.

"Jasper! What are you still doing back here? Go play!"

Go play? What, was he some kind of child?

He laughed and said, "I'm going! I'm going!" and pushed the now empty cart back to the door. Then he went, without another glance at me, tossing his plastic ap.r.o.n in the trash as he walked out the wide swinging doors. Pam didn't notice me either; she turned around and walked back into the kitchen.

My heart pounded in my ears. Perfect. It was perfect. Could I pull it off?

Ten minutes later, I slipped out those doors and through the empty cafeteria to the bathrooms.

Piano music trailed me. That's what Pam had meant by "Go play."

I glanced up at the clock. I had five minutes until cla.s.s started. I'd be late, but it was worth it.

51. Sleeping in on rainy mornings

52. Real whipping cream 53. Silly Putty 54. Slinkies 55. Hammocks I sometimes had to repeat sections of my list just to get through the morning cla.s.ses to lunch.

I lived for lunch and my kitchen job. Okay, I admit, mostly because I could keep stealing food, but also because it was one of the few places I felt like a real person. I could breathe, be competent, and think my own thoughts. I got good at noticing what needed to be done and taking care of it without asking. n.o.body ever gave me the cold shoulder for what landed me there in the first place. They were all nice to me. To me. Not because of who my parents were.

It became important to me to prove to Jasper that I wasn't like the rest of the B-Squad.

My status within the group had clearly changed. I didn't belong to the Squad, but they wouldn't truly release me to belong to anyone else either. Brooke hated me, and that meant Brittany and Bebe were required to as well, but Brooke couldn't write me off the way she truly wanted to because of Kevin-the way Kevin sought me out, touched the back of my neck, and said, "Hannah's cool" all forced Brooke to tolerate me. Plus, there was now the connection between Kevin and my dad, who were filming Blood Roses together, and Brooke was obsessed with my dad. She worshipped Dad in spite of me.

Brittany has this picture of Dad, shirtless, hanging in her locker, this picture that was in Entertainment Weekly. Bebe said Dad was "totally hot," which is gross to say in front of me, but not as gross as what Brooke said. Right in front of me she said, "I'd marry him."

Eww. That's so wrong on so many levels.

Just like the rest of my life.

My SR has stopped working. I've gained weight. I have this giant, swollen, moon face with bloodshot eyes all bruised purple underneath. My teeth are stained gray, no matter how many Crest Whitening Strips I use.

The school counselor pulled me out of cla.s.s for a talk. My pulse hammered in my ears as I walked to her office on legs filled with ice water. This was it. I was busted. I looked at the bright orange lockers, the green-and-white tiled floor, and thought nothing will ever be the same. Everything is about to change. My life is over.

I trembled by the time I took a seat in her office. I tucked my hands under my thighs.

When she said, "Hannah, many of your teachers are concerned about you," I wanted to throw myself to the floor, hug her legs, and beg, "Please! You can't make me stop! I'll die without it!"

She leaned toward me, elbows on her knees (I could see her pink lace bra), her forehead all wrinkled. "Hannah, are you using drugs?"

What? My spine stiffened. Images of my dad's mug shot flashed through my mind. "Are-are you asking that because of my dad's past problems?" I made my voice as snotty and offended as I could muster through my surprise.

"No, we're asking this because of your perpetually bloodshot eyes, your frequent nosebleeds, and your calm, high appearance when you arrive late every day to your after-lunch cla.s.s."

Wow.

She thought I was "self-medicating" my grief over my mother's cancer. I expected euphoria that they were so off base, but a crushing blanket of defeat settled on me, a blanket so heavy it felt like that awful lead thing the dentist drapes on you to take X-rays of your teeth. Part of me wanted them to know the truth and, more importantly, to make me stop it.

That surprised me, the realization that I wanted to stop it.

I denied everything. She didn't believe me. I walked back to cla.s.s, and the orange lockers and the green-and-white tile mocked me. Nothing had changed. I was trapped.

So, this conversation with the counselor only accomplished the double anxiety of knowing I was still on my own in this, but that people were paying attention to me. I didn't want anyone paying attention to me.

Unfortunately, the attention kept coming.

In art cla.s.s, we'd been a.s.signed to do life-size portraits of people cut out of thin wood.

Most people had chosen to paint themselves.

I had chosen to paint my mother.

Kevin chose to paint me.