"Stephanie Halliday: A Novel," a brief selection from Chapter 1

I first met Stephanie Halliday in a small, poorly lit study hall on the first day of seventh grade. Our study period took place in a math classroom, screamingly neat except for a somewhat incongruous purple velour couch that slouched slothfully in the back of the room. When I entered, it was occupied by people I didn’t know. In fact, the entire room was occupied by people I didn’t know, so I made myself as inconspicuous as possible and hid in a desk in the back corner of the room, wishing I had brought a book. I looked around the room from under my hair, searching for signs of friendly life. None were forthcoming. I didn’t even recognize the name of the teacher, Mrs. Forman, printed neatly in purple dry-erase marker on the whiteboard. Everything in the room seemed bleak and lonely, from the blank expanse of the board to my row of desks, empty except for me. Eventually, the seat next to me filled up and Mrs. Forman broke the awkward silence by taking attendance.
“Aaronson, Michaela,” she barked, peering ominously over the tops of her glasses. A skinny, underdressed girl raised one red-nailed hand in response. The teacher pursed her lips as if in disapproval and went on.
“Ackroyd, Katherine.” A girl in the third row looked up from her book with a shy smile.
“Black, Helena.” I raised my hand, timidly, wondering if the teacher would see me in my remote desk. Mrs. Forman acknowledged my presence with the barest of nods and I allowed my attention to wander for the rest of the list.
The girl who had taken the desk next to me caught my eye. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about her. Her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wore a nondescript grey sweatshirt over a pair of jeans. She wore no makeup or jewelry, and her face had the scrubbed, wholesome appearance of a girl in a Norman Rockwell drawing. She looked very clean and very American and therefore, I decided, very boring. I was about to look at something else when she noticed me and smiled.
“Hi,” she whispered, trying not to catch the teacher’s attention, “I’m Stephanie.”
“Helena,” I replied. I was saved from further conversation by the teacher, who had finished calling names and was beginning on her opening remarks.
“It is very important for academic success that the student body has a strong sense of community,” Mrs. Forman began, removing her glasses to sweep the room with a searchlight-like gaze. “Only through solidarity with your peers can you accomplish great things.”
“She sounds like Soviet propaganda,” I muttered, to no one in particular. Perky little Stephanie thought I was talking to her, and giggled, appreciatively.
“Now, I know most of you have known each other for years,” the teacher went on, eyeing us suspiciously, “and while it may be tempting to simply sit with your old friends and stick with your old cliques, it is also important to meet new people and welcome newcomers into your circle. In fact, we have a new student sitting right here with us now. Would Stephanie Halliday please rise?”
As Stephanie stood and waved to the class, I thought how ironic it was that Mrs. Forman’s idea of fostering community involved singling out the new kids and opening up to ridicule and exclusion. Stephanie, however, waved and smiled. She didn’t seem to mind.
“Stephanie is here all the way from Washington, DC,” Mrs. Forman went on, “so I’m sure she’ll be a lot of help when you get to U.S. government in your history classes.” The class gave her a blank look. She gave up and went on to lecture us about the importance of good study skills, before allowing us a few minutes of socializing before the class ended. “I trust you will use this time wisely to develop a sense of community,” she said with a wrinkly smile. The class ignored her.
At this juncture, Stephanie decided to talk to me, blithely ignoring my hunched shoulders and sour expression.
“What class have you got next, Helena?” she asked, grasping at anything that might start a conversation.
“P.E.,” I replied, hoping that if I kept my answers to as few syllables as possible she would get bored and stop talking.
“Oh, that’s cool. I’ve got science. Do you know anything about Mr. Fields?”
“He’s new,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t press for further details.
“Yeah? Is he a hard grader?”
“I don’t know,” I said, in as dull a voice as possible. She looked a bit defeated so I took pity on her. “He was our student teacher in sixth grade and all my friends had huge crushes on him.”
“Is he that hot?” she asked, eyes gleaming.
“I don’t know, I never liked him myself. He’s kind of beefy. I think he plays football.”
“Like Clark Kent!” Stephanie exclaimed, gleefully.
“I’m sorry?”
“You know, Superman,” she explained, sounding somewhat surprised. “Don’t you know about Superman?”
“Not much,” I confessed, “I’m a bit out of touch. I haven’t got a TV.”
“Like, not at all?” she asked, shocked. “Can you watch videos?”
“Yeah, we have a DVD player and all, but we don’t get channels.”
“Wow.”
I sighed, thinking that Stephanie was like so many other TV-obsessed clone children I had met and wishing she would go away.
“That’s pretty cool, though,” she went on, “not having a TV and all. You’re like free from commercials and stuff. It’s cool.”
“Thanks,” I replied. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.
“So what do you do for fun?”
“Well,” I began, trying not to sound boring, “I read a lot.”
“Me too!”
Delighted at having discovered that other people read as well, we chattered for the rest of the period about books we had read, were reading, or wanted to read. I ended up promising to lend her my copy of Death on the Nile, and so began our friendship.
She started eating with me at lunch when we both discovered we didn’t know anyone else in our lunch period. She ate badly, living mostly on leftover pizza or greasy-looking sandwiches supplemented with brown apple slices and bottled water. She usually brought a book to lunch, like me, but didn’t read much, preferring to talk. She filled in most of the conversation while I picked cilantro from my teeth or shredded a blade of grass with my fingernails. I found we didn’t have much to talk about after she tried reading Death on the Nile but gave up after a few chapters. “It was pretty weird,” she said, “good, but weird. Maybe I’ll read it later.”
I took the book back with a frown, realizing I hadn’t discovered a kindred spirit after all.