The New Girl Read Free Page A

was going to die before ever tasting one.
    “I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out,” Erica said faintly. “They look really nice.”
    “They don’t look so nice to me,” Caroline said as the girls loomed over us.
    “Hey,” one of the fifth-graders said to me. “Are you the New Girl?”
    It felt strange to be called the New Girl. At my old school, I hadn’t been the New Girl. I’d just been Allie Finkle (except for a few bad days I’d prefer to forget when I’d been Allie Stinkle). And I’d liked it that way just fine.
    “Um,” I said, my heart beating all hard inside my chest. “Yes?”
    “Is that your little brother?” the fifth-grade girl wanted to know.
    She pointed at Kevin, who was now hanging upside down on the jungle gym (under the supervision of a teacher, and my parents, who were laughing at him). Kevin, as usual, was enjoying the attention. Kevin didn’t have to worry about showing his underwear, of course, since he was wearing his pirate pants and not a skirt.
    “Um,” I said. I don’t know what it was about fifth-graders that made me say “um” a lot. Maybe it was how scary tall they were.
    I thought about denying that I was related to Kevin. ButI realized that they would probably just figure it out later, like at some school fair when they saw my whole family doing a cakewalk together or something.
    So I said, “Yes.”
    The biggest fifth-grade girl of all sucked in her breath, and I closed my eyes and waited because I was expecting her to say something like, “Why is he so weird?” or “Why don’t you and your family go back to where you came from?”
    But instead she cried, “He’s so cute !”
    And then all the other fifth-grade girls squealed, “Oh, my gosh, he is!” and “You’re so lucky!” and “What’s his name?” and “How can you stand it?” and “Is that a pirate costume he’s wearing?”
    I am not even making this up. That is exactly what they said. Those fifth-grade girls thought my brother in his pirate boots was the cutest thing since cute had been invented or something.
    And the next thing I knew, they had rushed over to Kevin and were petting him on the head like he was our dog, Marvin.
    And Kevin was loving every minute of it.
    “Yes,” I overheard him saying. “I guess I am pretty cute.”
    I let go of Erica’s arm and the four of us just stood there looking at each other.
    “That,” Sophie said, “was so close! I really thought those girls were going to kill us.”
    “They wouldn’t have,” Erica said. “Really.”
    “Erica always sees the best in people,” Caroline explained to me. “When she isn’t keeping the peace. Or trying to, anyway.”
    “That’s not true,” Erica protested. Then, when Caroline and Sophie started laughing, she joined them a little sheepishly and said, “Well, maybe it is.”
    I realized I’d just learned a really valuable rule: If a bunch of fifth-grade girls thinks your little brother is cute, just go along with it. It’s way better than dying.
    It was right then that the bell rang.
    “Come on!” Erica said.
    We went running over to stand in the line for Mrs. Hunter’s fourth-grade class. I smiled when I sawMrs. Hunter standing there in the front of the line. She looked so pretty in her sand-colored belted coat, even though her hair wasn’t at all long, like my teacher’s hair at my old school.
    Still, Mrs. Hunter’s hair was styled very nicely, and I saw that she had on very nice brown suede boots with high heels.
    Mrs. Hunter smiled back when she saw me and gave a little wink.
    When other kids saw the wink Mrs. Hunter gave me, they all looked down the line, like, Who’d she wink at? Then, when they saw me, they twisted up their faces, and I could hear them whispering, “Who’s that?” even though Mrs. Jenkins, the principal, had totally introduced me to the class a few weeks before.
    I blushed, knowing they were all thinking, That must be the New Girl. Some of the butterflies,