“Okay. Thanks, Ms. Peters.” I flashed her a smile before walking to the seat she pointed out.

As I walked up the row to my seat, a girl with pretty blond hair smiled at me. I smiled back and was about to say hi to her, but as I got closer to her, I noticed that her smile was more of a smirk.

“There are black holes on your overalls.”

Feeling embarrassed, I looked down to inspect my red overalls and Strawberry Shortcake top. I noticed the small black burn marks the girl was talking about. They were from my mom’s cigarettes. She would sometimes get clumsy when doing the laundry after she had some alcohol.

I didn’t know what to say to the pretty girl, so I just walked past her and sat down at my seat.

“Okay, let’s start out the day with some vocabulary,” Ms. Peters called out from the front of the room and instructed us to take out our notebooks.

As I pulled the new notebook Aunt Betty had gotten me the other day from my backpack, I thought I heard someone whisper, “Pst! Hey.”

I looked to my left and then my right and didn’t see anyone looking at me.

But then the low whisper came again. “Pst! Pippi Longstocking.”

My body froze when I heard those words. It can’t be him. Can it? I finally looked around again, and there he was, in the next row, a desk back from mine. It was the boy I had seen in the treehouse a week ago, the mean boy who I wasn’t going to be friends with.

“It’s me,” he whispered with his boyish grin.

“Duh,” I shot back. I then stuck my tongue out at him and turned back around. I wasn’t going to talk to him.

And I didn’t. For that entire morning, he had tried to get my attention three more times, but I pretended that I couldn’t hear him and looked straight ahead to the front of the class.

***

When lunchtime came, I started to feel nervous. In my old school, I used to sit at a small table with another girl who didn’t seem to have any friends either. She was very shy and didn’t talk much. But that was okay. I liked sitting next to her because she wasn’t mean and didn’t bother me.

I took my new Barbie lunchbox out of my backpack and looked for a place to sit and eat. The cafeteria was noisy, and smelled like tuna fish and French fries. As I walked around the large, crowded cafeteria, I couldn’t see an empty table anywhere.

I was about to give up and go find an empty bench in the hallway, when to my delight, I heard someone say, “Hi, Chloe.”

I quickly turned toward the voice and smiled. It was the pretty blond girl from my class.

“Hi … I don’t know your name,” I admitted sheepishly.

“It’s Amber.”

“Hi, Amber.” I smiled and waved at her and the three other girls at the table. They giggled and said hi back.

“Where are you going to eat your lunch?” Amber asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. I looked down at my feet and wished I was like her and had friends to sit with.

“Well, we have an extra seat here that you can sit in,” she began and she pointed to the empty seat next to her.

My eyes lit up and I looked up at her as I felt the relief wash over me. “Really?” I asked hopefully and took a step toward her table.

“But,” she continued and the same smirk from that morning spread across her face, “I don’t think you want to sit with us.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re dirty and you love to sit on the ground so your clothes can get more dirt and black holes on them.” She started to laugh and her friends joined in.

When I heard her words, I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment as tears welled up in my eyes. Aunt Betty had bought me some new clothes last week, but I wanted to wear my Strawberry Shortcake top and cherry-red overalls. They reminded me of my mom because it was her favorite. My mom had bought the top and overalls at a yard sale a year ago for only $0.50. I still remember how happy she was that it had fit me perfectly. She’d said it was her favorite because I’d looked as sweet as strawberries in the outfit.

“I’m not dirty,” I finally said. I wanted to sound louder, but my words came out as a whisper. But I didn’t wait to see if she had heard me. I turned around and began to run to the nearest exit to get away from their giggles.

But I only got past one table before I tripped over someone’s extended foot. I watched in horror as my Barbie lunchbox flew out of my hand as I fell forward and landed across my chest.

“Oh my God, she totally ate it,” Amber cried out as she called attention to my fall.

An explosion of laughter echoed in the cafeteria as my chest started to hurt from the impact. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I remained face down on the green-and-white checkered vinyl floor. I didn’t want to get up. Not because my body hurt, but because I didn’t want everyone to see me cry.

Then I heard someone walk up to me. I held my breath and prepared myself for more embarrassment.

“Amber’s breath smells like stinky farts,” cried out a boy’s voice. “Don’t let her breathe on you!” Another uproar of laughter exploded around me, but to my relief, it didn’t seem to be directed at me.

I turned my head slightly and tried to see who was making fun of Amber. But before I could see who it was, Amber screamed in a piercing voice, “It does not! You take that back, Jackson!”

Jackson just laughed. “But it’s the truth,” he continued with mirth in his voice. “That’s why you chew gum all the time when we’re not allowed to.”

“That’s not true at all!” Amber screamed. I couldn’t see her but it sounded like she was about to cry. Just as I picked my head up to look in her direction, I saw Amber storm past me and in the direction of the cafeteria door. “I hate you, Jackson Pierce! I’m going to tell your mom.”

“That’s because you’re a tattletale! Tattletale Amber.” The boy named Jackson laughed, and to my surprise, several kids started laughing and chanting, “Tattletale Amber. Tattletale Amber.”

A part of me felt bad that everyone was laughing at Amber for having stinky breath and being a tattletale, but I was more relieved that no one seemed to be looking at me anymore.

“Hey, take my hand,” came Jackson’s voice from behind me.

I smiled and wanted to hug this boy who had helped me. But when I turned around and rolled to my back to face him, I gasped.

The boy named Jackson—the boy who had just saved me from evil Tattletale Amber—was the same boy in the treehouse who lived next door, the same boy who called me Pippi Longstocking the first time we met, the same boy whom I hated.

“It’s you,” I blurted out as I stared at him and his outstretched hand.

“Yes, last time I checked, I am me.” He smirked, probably proud of himself for being such a smart-ass. “Come on, take my hand.” He held out his hand to me and smiled down at me.

I didn’t want his help, not from a boy who had been mean to me. But then I remembered what he had just done for me. He had been mean to Amber so people would stop laughing at me. But can I trust him? I wondered, hesitant to let my guard down with this boy.

But when I met his gaze, I felt myself relax. There was a warmth in his eyes that was echoed in his smile, and my hand reached up for his before I realized it. As his hand clasped firmly around mine, I felt safe and comforted.

“Thank you,” I said softly as he pulled me up from the ground. Then he handed me my lunchbox. “Oh.” I looked at it in surprise. “Thanks for picking that up too.”

“No problem.” He brushed off some dust from the front of my overalls. “Amber isn’t very nice. You should be careful with her.”

I nodded, realizing I learned it the hard way that Amber was not nice. “But why did you help me, then? You weren’t careful with her. What if she does something to you?” All of a sudden, I was worried for Jackson. Even though he hadn’t been nice to me before, I didn’t want Amber to be mean to him because he had helped me.