Prologue
Julia, seven years old
Boys are stupid. They’re mean, and I hate them.
My skin feels warm but not as hot as the fresh streaks of tears that cut through the dirt on my cheeks. I hate crying in front of people. Someone always makes fun of me, and it’s embarrassing. This isnothow I wanted second grade to go.
“Come on Julia, it was an accident,” Robbie calls out.
“Yeah,” one of his friends adds. “You weren’t supposed towalkinto it.”
“Andyouweren’t supposed to be throwing dirt in the first place,” I remind them all in an angry shout.
“We were just playing a game. One thatyouruined,” Robbie says, and I can hear the annoyance in his voice.
Who plays a game that involves throwing dirt, I want to ask. I don’t because it doesn’t matter. The damage is done. There’s dirt everywhere. In my mouth, in my hair, splattered across my clothes. I’m filthy, and they’re laughing at me.
I draw my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around my legs. “Just go away!”
Robbie’s stupid face pokes through the branches of my hiding spot, and I turn away so he can’t see that I’m crying. I just know he’d call me a crybaby. “You’re not going to tattle, are you?”
“If she doesn’t, I will.” A girl appears, one whose voice I don’t recognize. It’s firm and demanding in a quiet sort of way. “Didn’t you hear her? She said go away.”
Robbie’s face disappears, and I peek out from the small hole that separates the thick bushes to see two pairs of feet pointed toward each other. They’re so close that the tips of Robbie’s Skechers almost touch the girl’s busted-up teal Converse.
“Mind your business.”
The teal shoes inch closer. “You’ll mind my fist if you don’t beat it.”
“Like you can fight.”
“Because I’m a girl?” she challenges. “I got kicked out of my last school for fighting. You don’t think I’ll do it again?”
Robbie’s Skechers back up.
“Come on, Robbie. They ain’t telling.” I lean a little closer to see his two friends tug at his shirt, urging him to leave.
The girl clenches her fist, and they all back up. Thinking she might actually swing, I sit back down, nervous that I might be the reason for a fight during recess and worried my teacher will call my parents.
Then another face appears, and I jolt back in surprise. The girl studies me, and I stare back, taking in the strands of brown hair falling out of her loose ponytail. “You okay in there?”
I nod, though I’m not entirely sure that I am. “Are they gone?”
“Yeah. They’re gone.” She crouches low and squeezes into the tight space with me. I want to protest, but I’m so surprised by her boldness that I shift, trying to make room for her. She pushes her hair from her face and mimics my position, drawing her knees to her chest. “Sometimes, when I’m sad, I think, if I could fly anywhere in the world, where would I go? Right now, I’m thinking about Tasmania.”
“Why Tasmania?”
One shoulder lifts in kind of a half shrug. “I want to meet a Tasmanian devil.” Her dark eyes meet mine. “What about you? If you could fly, where would you go?”
It’s an odd question but one that I give serious thought. She chews on the side of her finger and waits for me to answer. She has a top front tooth missing, and her red baseball T-shirt is way too big for her scrawny frame. She looks completely disheveled, and I find myself deeply interested in this wild thing of a girl.
“I don’t know,” I finally say. “Probably the beach. Or someplace where Robbie isn’t.” I nudge a large piece of mulch with my toe. “I miss my teacher from last year.” I rest my head on the top of my armsand stare at the girl still chewing on her finger. “Did you really get kicked out of your old school for fighting?”
She shakes her head and wipes her hand on the side of her denim shorts. “No. We moved here from Ohio because my brother needed a better doctor.”
“Is he sick?”
Her eyes grow wide. “Very. Mostly, he’s just sick in the head. But he also had to get a whole new heart when he was six, and something in his immune system isn’t right.”
