Suddenly, Eve pointed to Brynn.
“What’s your GPA?” Eve asked.
“Umm . . .” Brynn stuttered. She wasn’t exactly sure. She’d never bothered to figure it out.
“Eve, that question was not appropriate,” Ms. Owen said firmly.
“I’ll take Rick,” Eve decided.
Peter looked around the room. Brynn knew she was the only one who hadn’t been chosen. It took him a second longer. “I’ll take—”
“Brynn,” she supplied.
“Great,” the boy behind her muttered. “Couldn’t have been anything decent or she would have said.”
At least there’s one place where GPAs and what books you’ve read—or haven’t—don’t matter, Brynn thought as she stepped into the cafeteria.
As she moved through the food line, grabbing a taco and fruit salad, she promised herself she was going to talk to at least one person before lunch was over. But which person? She scoped out the tables, deciding against the ones that were already almost full. The ones that were basically empty didn’t seem right, either. There had to be a reason they were avoided, right?
She picked one that was about half full and had a couple of kids she recognized from her morning classes sitting at it, including the girl who’d been reading the massive book before history. “Hi,” she said as she took one of the empty seats. She got hi’s from pretty much everyone except one boy, who just grunted. He was already working on his homework as he shoveled food into his mouth.
“I’m Brynn. I just started here,” she offered.
“Cool,” the book girl said. Then she pulled out her ginormous book and started to read.
“How’s everybody’s first day back starting out?” Brynn asked no one in particular.
This time she got grunts from everyone. They were all either reading or scribbling away on homework as they ate. This was craziness.
There has to be a table that’s more fun, Brynn thought. She looked around the room.
Her jaw dropped open. She didn’t believe what she was seeing. It couldn’t be possible.
She leaned forward and squinted. “This is just too bizarre,” she whispered. No one at her table bothered to ask her what she was talking about.
Brynn grabbed her backpack and her lunch tray and stood up. She needed a much closer look. “Bye, you guys,” she said, and got some grunts back.
Her day seemed like it was going to turn around. There was actually somebody she knew at this school! Somebody who was already a friend! Maybe not a BFF, but definitely an F.
Of all the people in the entire world, Candace—repeats-every-phrase-ever-uttered-to-her Candace—was sitting at a table about twenty feet away from her. Never mind that she and Brynn had never actually passed the acquaintance stage—Brynn raced over to her as if they’d been long lost friends, and then waited for a pause in the group conversation.
“You run for president, and I’ll run for vice president,” Samantha, the girl who had been fiddling with her tie in the bathroom, told Candace. “We’ll be unstoppable. And if you hold a class office in middle school, it’s easier to do it in high school. People just see you as a leader. And being a class officer in high school is great college-application material.”
“I’d vote for the two of you,” a cute blond boy said.
Suddenly, Brynn got it. Candace was one of the popular kids. Capital P popular. Class president popular.
Talk about bizarre. Not only was Candace a student at Brynn’s new school, she was popular there. Shy, awkward, Candace.
“I’d vote for you, too, Candace,” Brynn volunteered, jumping into the conversation.
Candace looked over her shoulder and her eyes widened. “Brynn!”
Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Do you two know each other?”
“We go to the same camp,” Brynn explained. “And now we go to the same school, too!”
“You’re going to school with me?” Candace said, doing a little of her echo thing.
“Yep,” Brynn answered. She waited for Candace to ask her to sit down. There was one empty seat.
But Candace just kept looking at her.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say hi,” Brynn finally said lamely. “I’ll see you around.” She gave a little wave to the group. Then she walked away, trying to decide if she should go back to the table of grunters or find a new place to sit.
Is there anyplace I’m going to fit in here? she asked herself.
She wasn’t sure about the answer. How could she be sure of anything when Candace was one of the popular kids? The Wilton Academy was turning out to be some bizarre backward school.
How was she going to survive?
Camp Confidential 16: Golden Girls Page 12