"Dad, who was I friends with in middle school?"

It had been two weeks of school. After making a point to ignore Wally, he seemed to have gotten the message. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't doing too well in the social department.

"Friends? You don't remember?" Mr. Boss took out his cigar, twirling it between his fingers.

"You didn't have any," her brother Shaunie immediately responded. He gave an odd look to Paddy and Mr. Boss.

"Well, that's not true," her mother interjected. "You were friends with that Rachel McKenzie girl. You don't remember that?"

"I kind of do, but we don't talk anymore." Fanny frowned, pushing her fork around her abandoned dinner plate. "I don't really talk to anyone anymore."

"Then make some new friends."

"Paddy," Mrs. Fulbright chastised before turning back to Fanny. "I'm sure you can make some new friends. You should try to talk to Rachel! You two were the best of friends."

"I don't think she would want to talk to me," Fanny mumbled.

"Why's that?"

"I don't know."

"It can't hurt to try."


Fanny went into school the next day determined to talk to Rachel. She wasn't really sure why they had stopped being friends. If she couldn't remember, it must not have been something major, right?

When she walked into the cafeteria, she felt her stomach flip. But she grabbed her lunch and approached the cheerleaders.

She gulped. "Hey, Rachel," she said quietly.

"Hi Fanny!" Kuki greeted cheerfully.

Fanny smiled back. "Hi. Can I… sit here?"

"Of course, silly! You don't need to ask!" Kuki cleared off a spot at the table and patted at it. Fanny sighed in relief as she put her bag down and sat down.

"Long time no see," Rachel said.

"Yeah." She suddenly realized how out of place she looked among the rest of the cheerleaders. She was the only one without a uniform on.

Rachel appeared to be studying her.

"So, what's up with you?" Kuki asked.

"Um, not much, honestly. What about you?"

"Cheerleading stuff, mostly. It's fun. You should try out next year!"

Fanny let out a nervous laugh. "Maybe."

"I saw you talking with Wally a while ago," Rachel said. Fanny couldn't grasp a tone. "How's he doing?"

"He was really annoying."

Rachel laughed. "Sounds like Wally."

"Aw, come on, he's not that bad!" Kuki protested.

"You're just saying that because you had a crush on him in elementary school," Rachel chided. "I have a class with him and he's just as stupid as I remember. Still never does his homework."

Kuki giggled. "Guess he hasn't changed much! He used to only do homework if Abby helped him."

"She probably wouldn't want to associate with him now," Fanny added. She still felt uncomfortable, but at least she could confidently say that.

"Yeah, no way. She's going to go to Harvard or something, and he's going to end up in prison, probably. We all predicted that when we were kids." Rachel shook her head in disbelief. "Can you believe he used to hang out with her and Hoagie? Hoagie's like five years ahead in school now. He was my lab partner in biology for a day before he got moved to the AP course."

"Wow," Fanny breathed. How had everyone gotten so smart? Had she always been this dumb?

Kuki shrugged. "Abby and Hoagie were too nice, I guess."

"Whatever happened to Nigel Uno?" Fanny suddenly asked without thinking. She narrowed her eyes as she realized what she said. What did happen to that kid?

"I don't know. I think they moved back to England or something." Kuki brushed it aside as if they hadn't been close friends for years.

"You guys haven't heard from him or anything?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Huh."

"Yeah, pretty weird," Rachel mumbled, trailing off. "Hey, Fanny, you ever talk to Patton?"

"Patton? No."

"Or Chad?"

"Isn't he like three years ahead of us?"

"Yeah, but he kinda hanged around us. Same with a bunch of other kids."

"I haven't really talked to anyone much recently, to be honest," Fanny said quietly.

"Aw! You should hang out with us!" Kuki put her arm around her shoulder. It was weird to not see an oversized green sweatshirt covering her arm.

"Um, okay," Fanny said, smiling.

"Let's hang out this weekend! My sister has a soccer game so we'll be alone all morning."

"Yeah, okay!" Fanny finally felt like she was having a high school experience.


Of course, art came around, and Wally was quick to notice her uptick in mood.

"I saw you talking with Kuki and Rachel earlier," he said, getting out his supplies.

"Yeah. What about it?"

Wally shrugged. "Nothing."

Fanny let out a deep sigh as she pulled out her pencil. That week's assignment was to work on perspective. She'd been working on drawing chairs for too many days in a row.

"Why were you friends with Hoagie and Abby?" Fanny blurted out.

Wally twirled his pencil in his hand as his face scrunched up in thought. "Dunno. That's probably why we're not friends now."

"Have you tried talking to them?"

He snorted. "Of course not. They're nerds. They wouldn't want to talk to me."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Fanny ended the conversation there and focused on her fifth chair of the week. Wally looked spaced out and scribbled in between thoughts. But she didn't really care. She kind of had friends then, right?


That Saturday, she knocked on Kuki's door. Kuki beamed as she opened it. "Yay! You came! Rachel's already here. She's doing some homework. Boring. I've gotta go put some clothes in the laundry, so you can go up there. Do you know where it is? Oh, good. I'll be right up!"

Fanny had forgotten how energetic Kuki could be.

"Hi, Rachel."

"Hi, Fanny."

They sat in an awkward silence.

"Rachel, why did we stop hanging out?" Fanny asked. She just had to know.

"You don't remember?"

"No… was it something I did?"

Rachel smirked. "Don't worry about it. You didn't do anything wrong."

Fanny opened her mouth to say something else, but Kuki had already walked back in, talking about her newest obsessions.