The Fog by Caroline B. Cooney Page B

resolutions. No purse, better notebook, memorize everybody’s names, scruffy jeans.
    “If you’re not going to eat your Jell-O, can I have it?” Gretch asked. “I love it with whipped cream.”
    Christina handed Gretch her Jell-O. She wouldn’t have eaten it anyway because she liked only dark-colored Jell-O (raspberry, strawberry) and never touched light-colored Jell-O (lime, lemon). It was a small price to pay for Gretch smiling at her, for being “in” like Vicki and Gretch, for sitting at what was obviously the best table.
    The only thing wrong with lunch was that she did not pay for it.
    Mrs. Shevvington had handed her a blue ticket to exchange for a hot lunch. Christina noticed that about a quarter of the students had these; the rest brought bag lunches, or paid money to buy a hot lunch.
    “How come I have this blue ticket?” Christina asked Gretch.
    “Because you’re poor,” Gretch said. “Island kids are always poor. The state is paying for your lunch.”
    For the first time Christina saw that Gretch, too, was dressed in catalog Maine. That while Christina’s jeans were from a sale rack in a discount store, bought on a mainland shopping trip in July, Gretch’s jeans had a brand name Christina recognized from full-page ads in Seventeen magazine. I might be able to afford the three-ring binder, thought Christina, but not the jeans.
    She wanted jeans like Gretch’s.
    It was the first time in Christina’s life that she had lusted after a brand name. She hated her own boring, unstylish jeans. They embarrassed her, they hung wrong, and they were too blue. She resented her parents for being poor and living where they didn’t know anything about seventh-grade fashion.
    Anya walked over to Christina’s table.
    An honor roll, drama club, soprano solo, tennis team, senior girl — pausing at lunch to chat with a seventh-grader? Even Christina, who knew nothing of the social life of schools, knew this was remarkable. Senior high kids ate on one side of the cafeteria and lowly junior high kids on the other. Nobody crossed the invisible lines, not with their feet, their speech, or their eyes.
    Gretch and Vicki were awestruck. Their giggles were silenced. Their Jell-O spoons hung motionless. Anya had never looked so beautiful. The eyes of all the seniors and juniors followed her, and so, in person, did Blake. Now the younger girls almost swooned. Blake was perfect. Anya was perfect. Anya and Blake together were twice as perfect.
    At first Christina thought. Anya had come over to make Christina look good and stop any teasing that might have begun. But Anya’s eyes caught Christina’s with a strange, dark desperation. Anya was not crossing the cafeteria lines to be sure Christina was surviving her first day, nor to borrow a dime for a phone call, nor to give her a message — but because Anya was not okay.
    Christina did not know what to offer. She could not imagine what had gone wrong for Anya.
    Anya held her arms out for comfort.
    Blake caught up to Anya. Certainly Blake wasn’t upset. Laughing, he took both of Anya’s outstretched hands and twirled her away, like a dance partner. The seventh-grade girls sighed in delicious envy. “Do you see a lot of Blake?” breathed Gretch. “He’s so wonderful! He’s so handsome!”
    “What’s it like on that island of yours?” Vicki asked. Vicki was very tan, and wore a white cotton knit sweater, which made her look even tanner. Her light brown hair was absolutely straight, and it swung when she moved. She had a tourist look to her; she was the day tripper they scorned on the island.
    “Oh, you know,” Christine said, “just a rock and some sea gulls.”
    She flushed with shame. She loved Burning Fog. Why had she made it sound like a garbage dump?
    “I adore sea gulls,” said Gretch. “They’re so beautiful and pure. I love how they tilt in the wind.” Gretch had blonde hair, cut exactly like Vicki’s, and they had a habit of tilting themselves toward each