Pop Princess by Rachel Cohn

cafeteria table of short-pleated-skirt girls and athlete guys. Now she was on her way. I would have been dead weight to her at school. We didn’t talk about the fact that we were friends at work, but not at school. It was just something that happened.
    The months of September and October found me roaming the halls alone, standing mute at my locker as kids who had known each since elementary stood around talking and laughing. When I tried to jump into a conversation, I got looks of contempt, or was just ignored. Lunchtime would have been torture if not for my unexpected savior, Science Project. Henry had a small group of geek friends he could have hung out with, but he regularly ditched them to sit with me in the darkest and farthest reach of the cafeteria and go over my algebra homework with me. Oh yeah, I could barely maintain a C average, despite my promise to Dad to get my grades up.
    I begged Mom and Dad to let me drop out of school, or at least for us to go back to Cambridge. They said no. They said, Making new friends takes time. Be patient. Join a club!
    Easy for them to say. They didn’t have to hear the whispers when I walked by people’s desks: “That’s the girl that was a B-Kid.” “That’s the girl whose sister died.” “She used to be a summer.”
    I was missing Lucky something fierce. The time since she had died had been soaked up in basic survival. Now, in this new environment where no one really knew me, I hurt. I could see Lucky and me walking the school halls together, sharing a plate of fries at lunch, whispering in each other’s ears when we scoped a hot guy. I thought, If Lucky were here, I could do this, I could deal.
    Mom must have read too many of those empower-your-teen-daughter saving Ophelia whatever books, because she came into my room one night with this genius idea: “Have you thought about trying out for the school musical? I just know you’d make friends doing that. I happen to be sure you’re the most talented singer at that high school, probably in all of Devonport. Give it a try, won’t you?”
    I said okay just so she’d leave my room but Dad followed right behind her. “Hey, kiddo, guess what Dad got you online. A subscription to Teen Girl magazine!”
    Thanks Dad, that oughta solve all my problems. That’ll get me right on track to being a well-adjusted teen!
    Dance class was my one refuge. After the initial OUCH that came from regular dance classes after two solid years as a couch potato, I was burning up the dance floor at the small studio in Devonport. The sweaty girl I saw in the mirror of the dance studio was not the outcast who never got invited to parties or didn’t have friends—the sweaty girl I saw in the mirror was alive with power. The minute the music came on, whether it was hip-hop or modern or classical, I felt my body relax and I was able to concentrate in ways I never seemed capable of in school. As I pushed, pulled, tapped, swung, twisted, turned, stretched, and flew across the dance floor, I imagined myself liberated from Devonport, living on my own, bailing on school entirely.
    But when the music ended, I went home to Mom and Dad—Mom and Dad who weren’t fighting like they did in the Cambridge house in the year after Lucky died, but who now, in this big house, just didn’t particularly bother talking to each other. Dad was more interested in obscure-Civil-War-trivia-dot-com, and Mom could not be separated from sad TV movies on the Lifetime channel starring just about every actor who’d ever been on Beverly Hills, 90210. Good thing Charles had that skateboard.
    Alone in my room at night, I pretended I was a pop princess. With Kayla’s latest CD in my stereo, I practiced lip-synching songs in front of my mirror, adding dance moves from the day’s class. A rainbow of pop princess pictures—Kayla, Mariah, Kylie—plastered the mirror, thanks to