Good means connected. Good means rich.

I’ve heard the names bandied about, too, and the most desirable kids to have in your class are those sired by Microsoft millionaires and billionaires, the founders of Amazon, or one of the McCaw brothers, those fathers of wireless technology.

If you don’t get a technology heir, you could always hope for a Nordstrom or an offspring of the professional athletes filling the Seahawk, Sonic, or Mariner roster.

Good kids from good money.

Long live the Eastside communities of Medina, Hunts Point, Yarrow Point, and Clyde Hill.

“Mom!” Eva’s reaching through the crowd and grabbing my elbow. “Did you see who I’ve got? Mrs. Shipley, the one I was telling you about last year, the one who does the school’s literary magazine.”

“Oh, not Mrs. Shipley,” groans a mother in the group. “She’s impossible, the hardest teacher by far at Points. It’s common knowledge that she gives twice the homework any other fourth-grade teacher does. Twice. And her expectations for writing! Absurd. These kids are still just learning to write. How can you expect them to be doing essays every week?”

Apparently, Mrs. Shipley was moved over from Bellevue High School, where she taught honors students, and she approaches her fourth-grade classes as though she were still teaching ambitious Ivy League–dreaming teenagers.

Eva lets out yet another squeal. “Mom! You won’t believe it. Guess who’s in my class?”

I don’t have a clue, and Eva, bless her, doesn’t make me wait.

“Jemma,” she breathes, her grip tightening on my wrist. “Jemma’s in my class! We’re going to be together in the same class this year. Finally!”

We’re heading to the car now, but Eva continues to jump and twirl. “This is so great. It’s so wonderful.” She turns to beam up at me. “This is going to be the best year ever.”

 

Chapter Three

Eva’s dancing through the aisles of downtown Bellevue’s Office Depot, her mood so ebullient that you’d think we were in a bridal salon instead of an office supply store.

Although to be completely fair, Eva truly does love office and school supplies. When she was a young child, her favorite purchase at the grocery store or drugstore was a spiral-ring notebook. Seriously.

While Eva searches for the correct supplies, I’m left to push the oversize shopping cart and check off items as they’re found. I’m also thinking about Eva and Jemma being in the same class and what an ungodly long year it will be if Eva insists on trying to make Jemma her friend.

This summer, Eva and I went to the Yukon for our summer vacation. We flew on Air Canada from Vancouver to Whitehorse, where we rented a car and spent a week exploring the Yukon Territory.

Growing up, I’d read everything I could by Jack London (my two favorite authors being Jack London and Mark Twain), and one of the places I’d always wanted to visit was the Klondike, so this summer Eva and I went.

We traveled the Top of the World Highway, panned for gold, had a drink at Diamond Tooth Gerties, and we laughed so much. We hiked and batted at mosquitoes the size of my fist. (Only a slight exaggeration.) We had such a good time, and I thought—somehow—that when we returned, Eva’s confidence would be back, too.

And it was, for all of one day, until Eva tried to tell the girls at the pool about her trip and the girls laughed. Laughed.

“Why did you go there?” Jemma asked in disgust. “Why didn’t you go to Hawaii like everybody else?”

Okay. That’s why I don’t like Jemma Young, and this is why I never wanted to be part of the popular-girl clique. Being popular seemed like such a drag. All those girls trying to say the same thing, do the same thing, pretend to be just like one another.

How horrible.

Eva peers around the school supplies display.