The Fog by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

little cormorant, drying its wings.

Chapter 5
    C HRISTINA HAD MATH FIRST . The teacher, Miss Schuyler, was a plain young woman with odd, old-fashioned braids. I like her, Christina thought. Oh, please, let her like me!
    Miss Schuyler said how lovely it was to have new faces this year. “Let’s welcome Brandi, who’s moved here from Boston,” Miss Schuyler said, pointing to a little dark girl cringing in the back. The class smiled. Everybody said, “Hi, Brandi. Glad to have you, Brandi.” The little girl stopped cringing.
    “And Kevin, who was here up through third grade, moved away, and is now back,” Miss Schuyler went on, pointing to a tall, very thin boy in a sweatshirt so large it nearly touched his knees. The class welcomed Kevin.
    Christina braced herself. Her purse, sitting on the desk, looked fat and stupid. Nobody else had spiral notebooks. Their paper was in three ring binders with impressive fold-out pockets and zips. Nobody else wore brand new jeans. All their jeans were old.
    “And our third new face is Christina, who lives on Burning Fog Isle, and is boarding on the mainland for the school year!”
    There was no teasing.
    Everybody looked as if this were the most interesting, romantic thing they had ever heard.
    Miss Schuyler said it had always been her personal fantasy to live on an island, but she was not brave enough: It took courage to live on an island, she said, and she knew through the year they would find Christina a person of courage.
    Nobody laughed at this. They looked awed.
    Two girls asked Christina to be sure and sit with them at lunch.
    Next Christina had science. Both the girls who had asked her for lunch — Vicki and Gretchen — were in science with her, and she sat between them. The science teacher said how well prepared island children always were; it put the rest of the class to shame.
    Nobody teased Christina about that either; they looked respectful of Christina’s superior knowledge.
    Gym was what Christina feared most. Her knowledge of team games was almost zero. She discovered that nobody else knew how to hold a hockey stick, either.
    She was as athletic as any of them.
    It’s going to be all right, Christina thought. I’m going to make it.
    Changing classes was not as scary as she expected. Most seventh-graders stayed together, and the classrooms weren’t spread very far apart. Choosing a desk wasn’t awful; nobody saved seats for best friends; they just walked in and slid down. All desks were modern and slick, seats attached like one-room schoolhouse desks. Christina found it difficult to get in and out of them. Everybody else was graceful. Except the boys, who kicked things, stuck their feet out, wrapped their ankles around themselves, and honked like geese.
    Christina was fascinated by the boys.
    So many of them!
    They were all like Michael, with immense feet and hands and noses. They were noisier than Michael, though, and had specialties Michael did not. The boys showed off their skills at hiccuping, burping, and jumping on each other’s feet. This was what you were supposed to fall in love with? Where were the boys like Blake? She examined her classmates for potential Blakes and decided there were none. Seventh grade had a full complement of creeps, weirdos, future criminals, and nerds.
    At lunch it turned out that Vicki and Gretch were fashionable. They were “in” — a phenomenon Christina had read about but never experienced, as the island had so few children. Other giggling seventh-graders angled for the chance to sit at the same table. Vicki and Gretch were given extra desserts. Vicki and Gretch’s opinions were sought and their jokes laughed at.
    The girls were much more attractive than the boys. They were neater, cleaner, and prettier. Christina nevertheless could not take her eyes off the boys. How annoying that the boys sat at their own tables and the girls sat at others. Christina wanted to be next to the boys.
    She was full of second-day-of-school