And not even just normal, but cool, like she was one of those girls who giggled over inside jokes with her friends, exchanged notes in the hall between classes, and talked about last Saturday’s raging party. Date an upperclassman, she’d suggested. Cameron had never dated anyone.

Lucy must have mistaken her silence for indifference, because she went on talking. Moving from one subject to another, she reminded Cameron of a slick silver stone, expertly flung so that it skipped along the surface of the ocean.

“The guys at our school aren’t even that hot, I know. It’s pretty lame. I keep asking my parents if I can transfer, but they’re like, no way. It sucks. I can’t stand it. Do you know that this school has stricter gym requirements than any other school in LA? And have you seen the uniforms they make us wear? Well, of course you have. You’re wearing one. But did you check the tag on the blazer? It’s a cotton-polyester blend, but they don’t even tell you how much of it is polyester. It could be like 99.9 percent, which is so nasty. You know? It seriously gives me a rash. So who else do you have?”

No one so beautiful had ever talked to Cameron for this long without insulting her. She needed a few moments to process it all.

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Once she did, she pulled her schedule from her notebook and handed it over to Lucy, still not convinced that this wasn’t an elaborate setup for some horribly cruel joke.

As Lucy surveyed it, her narrow eyebrows arched into perfect inverted V’s. “Cool, we’re in the same history class. English, too—that sucks for both of us. Mr. Turner gives a ton of homework and he wears the same brown jeans every single day.”

Lucy handed back the schedule and linked her arm through Cameron’s. “Come on, or we’re gonna be late. I’m going right by your math class on my way to bio.”

Still not quite believing what was happening, Cameron almost tripped as Lucy pulled her outside.

The next moments seemed to pass in slow motion. Before the door swung shut, Cameron looked over her shoulder for one last glance in the mirror. She hardly recognized the face that stared back at her.

The 10:57 late bell chimed, but to Cameron it sounded more like a game-winning buzzer. Fitting, because as far as she was concerned, she was walking away with the grand prize: Suddenly, almost magically, Cameron had been labeled as, and had therefore transformed into, one of the beautiful people.

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