Vision is also a fickle creature. You can see an object a hundred times, a thousand times, and it remains unchanged. Then in one swift second you realize it has been changing all along and your eyes hid it from you.

Savannah wasn’t just the little sister who left her clothes strewn on the bathroom floor, who always needed help with her geometry homework, and who misplaced the car keys with such regularity that she ought to have them stapled to her purse. Until then Jane had never realized—Savannah had become beautiful.

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Subject Two: Savannah Delano, sixteen years old Even though Savannah was only a sophomore, she was an inch taller than Jane. Her chocolate brown hair—the identical color of Jane’s but with lustrous highlights that their

mother

painstakingly

applied

once

a

month—swung around her shoulders. Not only had Savannah long ago switched to contacts, but the eyeliner and smoky eye shadow she wore gave her a glamorous air. Her walk was fluid, filled with confidence, and her clothes looked like they’d been torn from a fashion magazine.

Fairy’s side note: For mortals, it is almost as tempting to hate beautiful girls as it is to love them, and Savannah had felt her share of both emotions from her peers.

But she had only experienced love from her sister until that moment. Often, it only takes a moment to change everything.

Savannah glanced at Jane, then smiled at Hunter.

“I see you found my car.”

“It’s just the hot rod you promised.” She threw Jane a longer gaze. “And you’ve met my sister.”

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“We were just getting around to that.” Hunter turned his attention back to Jane. “I’m Hunter. Savannah and I are . . .” He shrugged. “You know . . .” Savannah laughed, a tinkling sound of happiness, and nudged into him.

Neither one of them noticed Jane for a moment, which was for the best, as Jane looked like parts of her had been ripped up and flung into the wind.

While Hunter smiled at Savannah, little pieces of Jane fluttered down to the parking lot. She was able to put on a disinterested stare by the time they turned to her again.

“We stopped by to tell you that I’ll be riding home with Hunter,” Savannah said. “He’s got a rebuilt T-Bird.

How cool is that?”

“Cool,” Jane said.

Hunter took hold of Savannah’s hand casually and nodded in Jane’s direction. “It was nice to meet you.” As they turned and left, Jane realized, with another rip to her heart, that he hadn’t recognized her. He didn’t even know she sat in the back of his calculus class.

She waded through the litter of her old self and climbed into the battered Taurus.

Fairy’s side note: An amateur might think that Janehad need of a fairy godmother at this point. I wouldn’t 15/431

make such a mistake, though. Jane is the type that, even had she believed in fairies, wouldn’t have asked for our help. Jane was too self-reliant for that.

For the next few days all of Savannah’s happiness came in hues and shades of Hunter. Love kept her drifting around the ceiling, too far up even to notice the usual high school popularity drama that envelops most teenage girls. We will not dwell on her now. Happy people are rarely interesting.

Jane buried herself in her schoolwork, silently mourning with differentials and integrals. Sometimes when the mood struck her, she would lash out with Shakespeare or grow haughty with Spanish verbs. Occasionally she tortured herself by asking Savannah questions about Hunter.

“Where did the two of you meet?”

“He’s on the track team,” Savannah said. “At first I was sort of intimidated by him because he’s a senior and he’s so—you know—to-die-for gorgeous, but I went up and flirted with him and it turns out he’s really down-to-earth. Very smart. He reminds me of you sometimes.” Savannah went up and flirted with him. That was it?

That was all it took to get Hunter’s attention?

Why hadn’t Jane joined track? Her father had suggested it, after all. Since he was a lieutenant colonel in the 16/431

marines, he jogged four miles a day. He said jogging could become a family affair. Jane, however, had insisted that it was irrational to run on a track. You didn’t actually go anywhere, so what was the point of getting there the fastest? That was the problem with being smart. Sometimes you overlooked the obvious points—

like the opportunity to flirt with jocks.

Not that Jane really knew how to flirt anyway.

Besides, how could such a smart guy like Hunter have been captured by mere flirting? Did he not care that Savannah doodled her geometry proofs into abstract art instead of finding out the area of the angles? Did he not know that Savannah’s definition of “taking notes in class” meant passing pieces of paper with messages scrawled on them back and forth with her friends?

Four days after their meeting in the parking lot, Hunter noticed Jane in calculus. He walked into the room and, in an apparent visual aberration, his gaze wandered toward the back. His head jerked slightly in surprise and he walked over to her desk. “Hey, I didn’t know you were in this class.”

Yes, she had realized that already; every day and every moment since he’d first spoken to her. She’d worn that knowledge like clothing. When he’d taken Savannah’s hand in the parking lot he might as well have said to Jane, “Here is your invisibility cloak.” 17/431

She smiled back at him like it was a surprise to see him too. “Yeah, I sit in the back.”

“Do you like calculus?” he asked.

“Yes.”

She hadn’t meant to sound offended by the question, but she must have because he laughed uncomfortably and said, “It’s just that for Savannah’s last pop quiz she gave the definition of an isosceles triangle as ‘one that was lonely.’ Scalene was one that suffered from skin disease.”

It gave Jane a wicked sense of satisfaction that he’d noticed that aspect of her sister’s personality, but she tried not to sound too arrogant. “Savannah doesn’t worry about homework. Apparently they don’t care about your GPA when you apply for beauty school.”

“Beauty school, huh? I would have thought she’d already graduated valedictorian from there.” Jane blinked at him in frustration.

Fairy’s side note: Adults are constantly telling teenagers that it’s what’s on the inside that matters. It’s always painful to find out that adults have lied to you.

Hunter shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you’d be like Savannah where math is concerned.” Meaning: After all, you aren’t pretty like she is.

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Jane let out a small inner gasp, but before she could crumple or rage or decide between these two actions, he added, “We’ll have to get together and study some time.” She gripped her pencil, but it wasn’t really a grip, it was a hug. “Okay.”

“We’ve got that test coming up next Monday. Do you understand L’Hopital’s rule?”

Now that they were on familiar terrain, a glint appeared in her eye. “Well enough to explain it to you.” A grin spread across his features. “What did you get on your last test?”

“A ninety-eight,” she said.

His smile grew. “I got a hundred.” And that’s how their friendship started, over differential calculus and chain rule and winding through limits that approach infinity. Sometimes at lunch—sophomores ate before the seniors—they’d study together. She enjoyed the look of concentration that came over him as his eyes scanned the numbers. She adored his small block print that couldn’t decide whether to slant or stand tall. She liked to watch his lips as he said the word

“maxima.”

Fairy’s side note: Love makes even smart people actlike idiots. For example, even though Jane knew Hunterwas dating another girl— in this case, her sister—she 19/431