looking stupid.â
I thought this was a very profound statement, but Bailey and Ava both laughed. âWhat?â I demanded. âWhatâs funny about that?â
âUm,â Bailey mumbled through a mouthful of Oreo cookie, âyou and everyone else. Do you think youâre the only person in the history of seventh grade thatâs worried about her reputation?â
I held out my hand for a cookie and shook my head. âNo, itâs justâI donât know. I feel like I have more to lose if I really embarrass myself.â
âThat is so self-centered,â Ava said, lifting her eyebrows. She rarely put things so bluntly, so it caught me off guard. My cookie tasted like cardboard in my mouth, and I kind of wanted to spit it out.
Bailey nodded. âYouâre more popular than ninety-nine percent of our class, but that doesnât mean itâs a bigger deal when you do something stupid. Itâs just a bigger deal to you .â
âBut it is a bigger deal,â I pressed on, though my face was getting hot, and I was a little queasy. I hated when Bailey and Ava confronted me about saying selfish things. They didnât understand what it was like for me, how it felt like everyone was always watching me, waiting for me to screw up, just so they could laugh at me. It was like I was more visible than most people at school. Most of the time, I liked it that way, but sometimes I felt like I had to be extra cautious. âI just mean, when I do something that makes melook stupid, it seems like the whole school is watching.â
âTheyâre not,â Ava said. âYou just think they are.â
âBut they are,â I argued. âIf I did something completely embarrassingâlike fall on my face during dance tryoutsâeveryone in school would know about it.â
âYeah,â Bailey admitted. âI guess you have a point. But the thing is, if you just laughed it off, you could probably make people forget about it in two days. If one of us humiliated ourselves in front of the whole school, it would probably get blown up into this huge deal and whatever it was would follow us around until we graduated from high school. Like Susannah Green! Everyone called her Crybaby Green all last year because someone spread a rumor that she started crying about missing her favorite stuffed animal during Spanish. Remember that?â
The look on my face must have made it obvious that I was the one who had spread around the rumor about Susannah. She really had cried about something stupid and babyish, like missing her stuffed animal. I think. I wasnât actually in the same class with her when it happened, but Heidi had given me the details and, of course, weâd laughed about it all week.
Who does that in sixth grade? Susannah really hadnâtlived it down, but Iâd never really thought about it much after that day. It didnât affect me on a daily basis, so Iâd never really considered that the story had never gone away. It trailed her all year. Because of me. âWow,â I said finally. âPoor Susannah.â
âYeah,â Bailey sighed. âThe thing you maybe donât realize is, most people care a lot less about what you and your friends are doing all the time than I bet you think they do. Mostly, I think people just kind of try to stay out of your way and hope you donât even notice them.â
I began to pick at my pinkie nail for the first time in over a week. Bailey saw me and said, âHey! Youâre going to ruin my hard work.â
âOh,â I said, stuffing my hands under my thighs. âSorry.â After a momentâs pause, I said, âDo you guys avoid me at school?â
âPretty much, yeah,â Bailey said, smiling sheepishly. âBut itâs a whole different world here at the lake, isnât it?â
I nodded. âYeah. And you guys are so different than I thought you would
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