There was a new brightness in Stacy's voice as she turned. “Really? Did you

win?”

Kate almost winced but kept her smile. “Not really. But things turned out fine.” Hadn't they?

“My art teacher is making me enter the fair. She says my project is really good.”

Kate nodded. “Judging from what I saw, I bet it is.”

“It's a really big painting I did of my farm. I painted it on barn wood.”

Wood. Good. That should be rocket-proof. “I hope you win,” Kate said.

Stacy just nodded.

Kate's eyes wandered to the yellow-papered bulletin board in the hall, filled

mostly with class notices. They rested on a collage of photos pasted on green poster board: Peter and his class outside somewhere, laughing, playing, making

faces. She smiled. “Where was that taken?”

Stacy turned to see what she was looking at. “Oh, that. That was our field trip at the beginning of the year. Mr. Clark took us out to Palisades Park to shoot off some rockets we had made in class.”

“You made rockets?” Her stomach flipped once. Again with the rockets.

“Yeah—Mr. Clark said it was an experiment on combustion and propulsion.

We did it with the physics class. It was fun. He's really cool.”

“He's certainly something.” Kate remembered the scorched marks on the

floor of the treehouse.

“Yeah. The school didn't have any money for it, but he paid for it all himself,

anyway. Then he took us all out for ice cream.”

Kate scanned the rest of the photos. She found one with Stacy, small smile,

away from the more boisterous part of the crowd, but still hanging with a few friends. It was an all-too-familiar reminder. “So, are those your friends?”

Stacy looked up and then down again. “Yeah.”

Kate squinted at the photo again. “What's that on your jeans?” She thought

she saw a pattern. “Is that needlepoint?”

“No. It's yellow paint.”

“Paint? Did you have an accident in art class?

“No. It was nothing. Just some guys.”

Kate's eyes narrowed. “What guys?”

Stacy shrugged. “Just…guys.” She moved a glass slide over by a gray

microscope. “It's no big deal. A couple of guys were messing around and flicked

me with yellow paint in art class. It's just high school, my dad says.”

A litany of similar memories flashed through Kate's mind. Laughing and

pointing in the hallway. Braces jokes. Snickers and glances. Not being picked for

teams at PE. Small things that piled up into big things. If you let them.

“Well, you're right about one thing. It is no big deal. You know you're not all

the things people say about you, right?”

Stacy nodded but kept working. “I know,” she said softly.

“And it shouldn't be 'just high school' either.” She could feel her ears warming.

“I know,” Stacy repeated, then glanced at Kate before returning to her test tubes. “I bet you probably didn't have…I mean, you're so pretty…” She trailed

off.

“I didn't have problems in high school?” Kate finished for her. She almost snorted. “Sorry. Stacy, the stories I could tell.”

Stacy now turned, head up, eyes wide. “Really?”

Kate pulled out a stool at the bench and sat down. “I had braces until I was

sixteen. My name's Katie Brady, so, of course, I was Katie Braces for most of high school. Then there were the boys who would bark or moo when I walked

by. And the girls weren't much better. One of them saw me reading a Harry Potter book. Started calling me 'Hairy Pitter' in PE.” She paused, remembering.

“Even the friends who you thought were your friends could turn on you.”

“I thought you would have…I mean, you're not…”

Kate touched the younger girl's shoulder. “Hey, Stacy? Listen to me. Just because you can't fit into a size six doesn't mean you're worthless. And just because you were born with your teeth at the wrong angles doesn't mean you aren't beautiful. At all. Right?” She gave Stacy's shoulder a squeeze for emphasis.

Stacy nodded yes. “I wish I was as pretty as you.”

“Hmph. Remember when your mom used to tell you to eat your vegetables?