Breadcrumbs Read Free

wizard or witch or psychic or somebody like that, he would gaze around the room with the certainty that something was out of place, something was an inch too far to the right, half an inch too far to the back, and his eyes would fall on her.
    Hazel sat behind Molly and Susan, who never paid any attention to Hazel, at first because they were best friends and that kept them occupied, and then they stopped being best friends and that, too, kept them occupied. And so that was all right. She sat next to Mikaela, who was usually too busy aligning her many-hued highlighters to notice whatever thing it was that Hazel was doing wrong. And so that was all right. But she sat in front of Bobby and Tyler. And that was not all right.
    And, of course, as soon as she sat down she heard a voice hissing behind her.
    “Hazel, you’re late!” Tyler whispered, voice full of fake concern. “You know, you really should try to get to school on time.”
    She turned to glare at him. He and Bobby were both snickering. “You guys are big goons,” she hissed back.
    “ Goons? ” said Susan. Next to her, Molly laughed. The girls glanced at each other, and it seemed Hazel’s shocking uncoolness was the thing that would finally bring the two of them back together.
    Hazel looked at her desk. They’re stupid, Jack would say. They’re babies. Ignore them. Who cares what they think? In her head, she peered through the glass window of Mr. Williams’s class, Jack waggled his eyebrows, and she grinned.
    Mrs. Jacobs began to talk, and soon everyone was ignoring Hazel in favor of taking notes on prepositions or percentages, so Hazel turned her attention where it most felt at home—out the window, letting Mrs. Jacobs’s voice recede into the background with everything else.
    The windows to their classroom looked out onto the street, and across to some apartments and a big pet-
grooming place. Her class at her old school looked out on a small patch of woods, and Hazel had always thought that there was something magical about them, that it was the sort of place she and Jack were supposed to go into together. They would bring breadcrumbs, and they would cross through the line of trees to see what awaited them.
    There was nothing magical at all about the things outside the window in Mrs. Jacobs’s room, but it was still more interesting than the things happening in it.
    And then, the drone of Mrs. Jacobs’s voice stopped midsentence—and who knows, maybe that sentence was You then move the decimal point two places, like so , or else Say it with me: aboard, above, about, across, around —and Hazel heard a sound like something deflating. It was a sound she was familiar with. She turned her head reluctantly to the front of the room.
    “Hazel Anderson,” said Mrs. Jacobs, who was the thing that had deflated, “would you sit still?”
    Somebody sniggered. From somewhere in the back of the room someone else sneered, “Yeah, Hazel ,” which was not the greatest insult ever, but one thing Hazel had learned at her new school was when it comes to insults it’s the thought that counts.
    Mrs. Jacobs looked at her with weary eyes, and Hazel froze. She was still like the snow-covered morning. She did not even breathe, at least very much. She was going to listen, she was going to try, because she was not a little kid anymore, because it was her job to sit still and listen to the teacher and we all have to do our jobs in this world, even if we don’t like them very much.
    “That’s better, Hazel,” said Mrs. Jacobs.
    Another snigger.
    Hazel felt her cheeks burn. She just could not seem to do things right. It would be so much easier if Jack were in her class. At least then there would be one part of the room where she belonged.
    Her mother said it would be a good chance to make new friends. And she’d tried. The first day of school she’d gone right up to the other kids and started talking to them and they’d looked at her like she was offering to welcome