Breadcrumbs Read Free Page A

them to the Lollipop Guild. She had not known until this year that she was different from everyone else. When they had drama, she was the only girl who volunteered for roles in the skits. When they had art, she was the only one who painted Hogwarts. When they did writing, she was the only one who made up stories about girls with magic swords and great destinies.
    She felt like she was from a different planet than her schoolmates, and maybe it was true. Hazel had been adopted when she was a baby. Her parents said they flew a long way to take her home with them because they loved her so much they would travel the galaxy to get her. They could have meant that literally.
    On Lovelace Parents’ Night, four weeks into the school year—which had been more than enough time for Hazel to realize that she was different—she’d walked into the classroom with her mother, and people looked. They looked from her to her mother and back to her. And Hazel, for the first time, saw what they saw. Her mother was white with blue eyes and light brown hair. Hazel had straight black hair, odd big brown eyes, and dark brown skin. People looked, and Hazel looked, too, and when she looked she realized that everyone else came in matching sets of one kind or another.
    Hazel stood there, un-matching, and she thought, Ah, this is it, I see now.
    But then Susan walked in with her parents. On Culture Day, Susan had stood before the class and wrote her Chinese name on the board and spoke of folding paper into birds and dragons dancing down the street. Hazel wondered at this girl who had not only a great variety of shoes, but culture, too. It was the sort of thing Hazel was supposed to have. Mrs. Jacobs had even asked her, the day before, if she would have anything to share for the class. But Hazel only had beat-up sneakers.
    Susan was from China, but, as Hazel learned that night, her parents were not. Susan did not match. Hazel stared at the girl and her pale, proud parents, stared so long that Susan noticed. The girl turned and stared back, quizzically, a little accusing and a little fearful, as if to ask, Is there something on my face or are you just a spaz?
    Hazel needed to explain, she needed to say something, because maybe Susan didn’t realize it, maybe Susan thought she was alone, too. This was the sort of thing she knew she was not supposed to do, that it was not quite appropriate, and yet she could not help herself. She walked over to Susan and grabbed her shoulder.
    “You’re like me,” Hazel whispered.
    Susan gave her a look that clearly said, I do not know what you think you are saying, but I am nothing like you.
    Hazel dropped her hand and slunk away.
    So it wasn’t that, either.
    She still didn’t know why she didn’t fit. And she’d given up trying to figure it out.

Chapter Two
Fairy Tales
    W hen it was finally time for recess, Hazel burst out of her seat and flew to her jacket, accidentally bumping into Mikaela with such force she sent a pink highlighter clattering down the hallway. Hazel ran past the doorway where Mrs. Jacobs stood, and out onto the white fields where Mr. Williams’s class already roamed in their winter puffiness.
    The snow had stopped coming down now. But the ground was thick with it, and half the fifth graders of Lovelace Elementary hurled themselves into it while the other half lifted their feet in and out of it warily, like they were treading on some hostile alien moon.
    And there was Jack, waiting for her by the big slide, as he almost always was. Every few days he’d go play capture the flag or football with Bobby and Tyler and the other boys to keep them from getting sulky. Hazel was okay with that. She’d sit and read. He’d always come back.
    “Hey,” he said, grinning as she ran to him. “Have you recovered from my devious snowball attack?”
    “Didn’t even feel it!” chirped Hazel. “Got to work on your arm strength!”
    “Not me,” said Jack, molding a snowball in his hands. “You’re