Carrie glances at Janie, then picks up another dish and wipes it with the towel. “Not really.”

Janie concentrates on the food, but her stomach flips. She waits, until the silence grows awkward. “You want to talk about it?”

Carrie is silent for a long time. “Not really. No,” she says finally. AND PICKS UP SPEED

August 30, 2004

It is the first day of school. Janie and Carrie are juniors. They wait for the bus on the corner of their street. A handful of other high school kids stand with them. Some are anxious. Some are terribly short. Janie and Carrie ignore the freshmen.

The bus is late. Luckily for Cabel Strumheller, the bus is later than he is. Janie and Carrie know Cabel—he’s been trouble in school since ninth grade. Janie doesn’t remember him much before that—word was that he flunked down into their grade. He was often late. Always looked stoned. Now, he looks about six inches taller than he did in the spring. His blue-black hair hangs in greasy ringlets in front of his eyes, and he walks with shoulders curved, as if he were more comfortable being short. He stands away from everyone and smokes a cigarette.

Janie catches his eye by accident, so she nods hello. He looks down at the ground quickly. Blows smoke from his lips. Tosses the cigarette down and grinds it into the gravel. Carrie pokes Janie in the ribs. “Lookie, it’s your boyfriend.”

Janie rolls her eyes. “Be nice.”

Carrie observes him carefully while he’s not looking. “Well. His pox-face cleared up over the summer. Or maybe the new fancy ’do hides it.”

“Stop,” hisses Janie. She’s giggling, and feeling bad about it. But she’s looking at him. He’s got to be about as dirt poor as Janie, judging by his clothes. “He’s just a loner. And quiet.”

“A stoner, maybe, who has a boner for you.”

Janie narrows her eyes, and her face grows sober.

“Carrie, stop it. I’m serious. You’re turning mean like Melinda.” Janie glances at Cabel. His jeans are too short. She knows what it’s like to be teased for not having cool clothes and stuff. She feels herself wanting to defend him.

“He probably has shitty welfare parents, like me.”

Carrie is quiet. “I’m not like Melinda.”

“So why do you hang with her?”

She shrugs and thinks about it for a minute. “I dunno. ’Cause she’s rich.”

Finally the bus comes. The ride is forty-five minutes to school, even though the school is less than five miles away, because of all the stops. Juniors like Janie and Carrie are considered by the unwritten bus rules to be upperclassmen. So they sit near the back. Cabel passes by and falls into the seat behind them. Janie can feel him push his knees up against her back. She peers through the crack between her seat back and the window. Cabel’s chin is propped up by his hand. His eyes are closed, nearly hidden beneath his greasy curls.

“Fuck,” Janie mutters under her breath.

Thankfully, Cabel Strumheller doesn’t dream.

Not on the bus, anyway.

Not in chemistry class, either.

Or English.

Nor does anyone else. Janie arrives home after the first day of school, relieved. October 16, 2004, 7:42 p.m.

Carrie and Stu knock on Janie’s bedroom window. She opens it a crack. Stu’s dressed up, wearing a thin, black leather tie, and Carrie has on a slinky black dress with a shawl and a hideously large orchid pinned to it.

“I saw your light on in here,” explains Carrie, regarding the unusual visit. “Come to the homecoming dance, with us, Janers! We’re not staying long. Please?”

Janie sighs. “You know I don’t have anything to wear.”

Carrie holds up a silver spaghetti-strap dress so Janie can see it. “Here—I bet this’ll fit you. I got it from Melinda. She’ll die if she sees you in it instead of me. And I’ve got shoes that’ll go with it.” Carrie grins evilly.

“I haven’t washed my hair or anything.”

“You look fine, Janie,” Stu says. “Come on. Don’t make me sit there with a bunch of teenybopper airheads all night. Have pity on an old man.”

Janie smirks. Carrie slaps Stu on the arm.

She meets them at the front door, takes the dress, and heads over to Carrie’s ten minutes later. 9:12 p.m.

Janie drinks her third cup of punch while Stu and Carrie dance for the billionth time. She sits down at a table, alone.

9:18 p.m.

A sophomore boy, known only to Janie as “the brainiac,” asks Janie to dance. She regards him for a moment. “Why the fuck not,” she says. She’s a head taller than him. He rests his head on her chest and grabs her ass.

She pushes him off her, muttering under her breath, finds Carrie, and tells her she has a ride home and she’s leaving now.

Carrie waves blissfully from Stu’s arms.

Janie attacks the back door of the school gym and finds herself in a heavy cloud of smoke. She realizes

she’s found the Goths’ hangout. Who knew?

“Oof,” someone says. She keeps walking, muttering “sorry” to whomever it was she hit with the flying door.

After a mile wearing Carrie’s heels, her feet are killing her. She takes off the shoes and walks in the grassy yards, watching the houses evolve from nice to nasty as she goes along. The grass is already wet with dew, and the yards are getting messier. Her feet are freezing. Someone falls in step beside her, so quietly that she doesn’t notice him until he’s there. He’s carrying a skateboard. A second and third follow suit, then lay their boards down and push off, hanging slightly in front of Janie.