Ungifted by Gordon Korman

considered wearing sneakers instead of the fancy shoes that went with the outfit, but I couldn’t tell if the combination would be funky or just plain stupid. I went to the Academy for Scholastic Distinction, not the one for Fashion Sense.
    Makeup was the next hurdle. I thought back to those girls in the mall—the ones hanging out with Donovan and the two boys named Daniel. They’d been wearing tons of makeup. It looked great on them, but if I tried it, for sure I’d paint myself up like Bozo the clown. In the end, I opted for light mascara and a hint of blush—my complexion can be a little pale from too much time in the library.
    â€œYou look beautiful!” my dad declared emotionally.
    << Hypothesis: The compliment loses credibility in direct proportion to how closely related you are to the speaker .>>
    We headed for school. There was a traffic jam on the circular drive. Kids were swarming from all directions, alone and in groups, arriving by car, bike, skateboard, scooter, and on foot. The Academy was small, but Hardcastle Middle had nine hundred students, and it looked like this was going to be a huge turnout. I felt a renewed buzz of excitement, followed by a severe bout of anxiety. By the time we got to the front door, I already knew that my outfit was totally wrong. Most of the girls were wearing either jeans or short skirts, with sneakers or sandals despite the cold weather.
    In the end, though, nothing could overpower my exhilaration. Now, barely a few months shy of eighth-grade graduation, I was attending my first middle school dance. I finally had an answer for all those people who said, “Get a life.” I was getting one.
    Amazingly, I made it into the gym attracting only a few strange looks, so I guess I wasn’t as overdressed as I’d feared. The place was about a third full, and kids were pouring in, chattering happily, ready for a good time. The decorations caught the eye first. I don’t want to be unkind, but they were really lame—hearts and cupids, lots of streamers, pink, red, and silver everywhere. Hardcastle had done the whole setup—if they’d put us in charge of it, I’m sure we could have come up with something a little more creative. But maybe that was the point.
    << Hypothesis: Not everything needs to be measured by gifted standards .>>
    Tonight was supposed to be about kicking back and cutting loose a little. Too bad I was doing it in a dorky party dress.
    The music was loud—really loud. Feel-it-in-your-molars loud. People were already dancing. Another problem: I didn’t know how to do that either—not the way they were doing it, anyway.
    << Hypothesis: The scientific method applies to everything, dancing included .>>
    In other words, if I studied it hard enough, I could catch up.
    I only saw a few kids from the Academy, mostly because they seemed to be hiding. They lurked in corners, or in the shadow of the deejay booth. The way they goggled at our guests, you’d think we’d been invaded by Huns who were presently sacking the school. The Hardcastle kids were brasher than us, wilder, and more confident. The boys were a lot more physical—at any given time, 40 percent of them were engaged in shoving one another. And they outnumbered us ten-to-one.
    I spotted Oz right away. He wasn’t with the other chaperones. He circulated among his own students, urging them to mingle. He would have had a better chance getting Abigail to impale herself on a fence post. I caught her attention, and she gave me a beseeching look—the kind you turn on the helicopter pilot who’s coming to save you from drowning. Trying to set a positive example of the sort of hosts Oz expected us to be, I turned to the boy standing next to me and said, “Great turnout. Are all the Hardcastle parties this crowded?”
    He didn’t hear me. The pounding beat was so loud that my words died less than an inch from my lips. I repeated it,