Brecklyn strode through the lunchroom and into the hallway with her lunch tray. Her new school had closed campus lunch and technically, she wasn’t even suppose to leave the lunchroom. But she didn’t make a mess, so the janitors left her alone. With expertise that one only learns after a month and half’s worth of practice, Brecklyn pulled herself up onto the ledge where she ate lunch. It was just a little alcove not far from the lunchroom, a random square hole in the brick wall. Perfect for someone to eat lunch completely and totally alone.

“Hey, Scarf Girl,” a boy with vibrant, dark blue eyes said, pulling himself up.

Go away, Brecklyn thought, wishing the boy could hear her thoughts and hoping he would leave. Then she realized how ridiculous she sounded. Brecklyn spent almost every hour of everyday cursing the people of Virginia for not being her friend, regardless of having pushed away the student council president on the pretense that it was his job and he didn’t really mean it, and the overly preppy welcoming committee of blonde cheerleaders. She figured she may as well give this kid a chance to see if he hated her or not.

She sighed and bent her knees to make room for him on the ledge. He didn’t move, which was just as well. Brecklyn was currently occupying 3/4 of the ledge with her legs out straight, but the boy was so skinny he fit comfortably in the last quarter, his legs kicking off the edge.

“I’m Luke Halstrom. Most people just call me Luke.” He pulling up his floppy blond hair in an attempt to get it to stick up. “I’ve heard a lot about you. The girl who wears a scarf everyday. Apparently you didn’t go to Teresa's welcoming party for the new kids. Very rude,” he said, sounding slightly amused.

Brecklyn cracked open her chocolate milk. She knew the cheerleading squad was a bad idea. She had been smart, not antisocial. Teresa was that one who wore the outrageous five inch heels. If she hadn’t been there, Brecklyn might have actually considered for a whole five seconds whether or not to go. But the distaste in Teresa’s bland brown eyes and the effort that was going into her smile had told Brecklyn to steer clear. Even if it meant that half the school hated the ‘new girl with the scarf’.

“But I got to thinking,” Luke went on. “Who wears a scarf everyday? I figured you could be a vampire trying to hide bit marks, or maybe you were just cold all the time. Maybe you had a boyfriend out of town and you were trying to hide hickeys or something. Or maybe you had scars or a rash or vitiligo. Vitiligo is that skin condition that messes up the pigment and would make your skin all splotchy, but I suppose that if you had vitiligo, you probably wouldn’t need the explanation.”

Luke stopped and waited for Brecklyn to respond, giving her an expectant look with those crystal blue eyes. Brecklyn peeled her banana and looked at this boy who had just analyzed her like she was on a microscope slide available for observation.

Luke’s light blond hair was in a constant revolt against him, flopping back down, despite his never ending struggle to get it to spike up. His skin had nicely tanned over the summer, but the strip of light freckles that were sprinkled across his cheeks and over his flat nose still showed through. He was tall and skinnier than Brecklyn’s stick-figure of a little sister, Carly. The worst was his smile. Luke’s smile was so incredibly boyish that it just tugged at Brecklyn and made her trust him with her secret.

She pulled down the pale red scarf to reveal the scars on her neck that hadn’t healed yet.

“I love being right,” Luke said quietly, following the lines crisscrossing her neck with his eyes.

Brecklyn raised an eyebrow. How could he have been wrong? He had offered up every option there was. Of course one of them was right.
He leaned back into the brick wall. “I knew it wasn’t the boyfriend out of town. You’ve got so many freckles on your face and arms, the ones on your neck would hide a hickey. Plus, I checked your Facebook.”

Brecklyn smiled at the fact that he had ruled out kissing but not the vampire theory and took another bite of her banana. As she had expected, Luke went on talking.
“But now the question is why you wouldn’t tell anyone. Most people look for sympathy, even if they are super shy and new to the school. It’s not a conscious decision for some people, human beings just have this obnoxious need to let others know what sucks in their life. Then you went and let everyone spread rumors about you, without even trying to explain yourself. So I still don’t get why you haven’t told a soul that you’ve had surgery on your neck. It couldn’t be embarrassing, could it? What, did you smoke when you were eight or something? There are girls who show off scars from C-sections at this school. You’re not even telling me, you’re just letting me ramble about pregnant teenagers,” Luke said.
Brecklyn pushed her glasses up and stared straight into Luke’s dark blue eyes, trying to see if he was worthy. She ran a hand through her wavy, dark red hair and reached for her backpack. Hesitation struck her as her hand hovered over the answer to Luke’s question.
She remembered how happy and optimistic her mom had been, presenting her with the solution to Brecklyn’s newfound problems. Brecklyn had wanted so bad to tell her mom how she’d never be able to follow through with the plan her mom had cleverly thought up, but she’d been too tired to do anything in that hospital bed. Sometimes she thought her mom had never been to high school, but this definitely confirmed it.
Brecklyn sighed and pulled out the whiteboard and dry erase marker for the first time at school. Luke raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting this. Steadily, Brecklyn wrote out: ‘I can’t talk’.
“Wow,” Luke said in awe. “Really?”
Brecklyn nodded.
“That’s kinda cool actually. No offense.”
It’s not cool, Brecklyn wrote. Trust me, she added.
“Sorry. Were you born like that? No, stupid question. If you had this all the time, you wouldn’t be embarrassed to use a whiteboard to communicate. And the scars. So I’m guessing... cancer?”
Brecklyn nodded and started on the crust of her pizza.
“And they had to take out your vocal cords,” Luke said, still amazed. “That is pretty hardcore, Scarf Girl.”
My name’s Brecklyn, she wrote.
“I know. Brecklyn Blaine. We have AP Chem together. I just like calling you Scarf Girl. You can call me Fat Man if you want,” he said.
Brecklyn raised an eyebrow and quickly scrawled, why? You’re skinny.
“Hm. Sure, if you think so,” he said, tugging on his hair.
He sounded unconvinced, which confused Brecklyn. She could practically see his ribs through his orange t-shirt, and he had more extra belt that what was used to go around his waist.
How about Stick Boy, she asked.
Luke laughed. “Nah, we better go with the truth. Anyway, we have a problem.”
We do?
“Heck yeah, first of all, I can hardly read your handwriting. Second of all, you need different colors so I can tell if you’re being sarcastic or not. Third of all, the whole school knows you as that new girl who’s so stuck up she won’t talk to anyone. I guess you missed it because you declined the Facebook invite to the high school students’ page, but take a guess who won Homecoming Queen B****? Brecklyn Blaine. I’m not about to let four thousand people think that you are snob when you’re not.”
Brecklyn took her time erasing those two words. She was speechless, both literally and figuratively. She didn’t know what to say to that. Luke had known her for all of twenty minutes and he was already defending her like loyal, protective older brother. Adi was the only brother she had that wasn’t in a diaper, but he was in eighth grade.
How do suggest we go about changing the minds of 4000 people? Brecklyn crammed into the small rectangle.
“I don’t know. We can figure it out sometime later. Tomorrow maybe,” Luke said, seeming a little pleased that he’d convinced her to do something.
Tomorrow’s Saturday.
“Oh, right. Well, Monday then.”
The bell rang and Luke jumped down from the ledge. He took Brecklyn’s empty tray and tucked it under his untouched lunch. Taking the hand he was offering, Brecklyn hopped down from the ledge and quickly scribbled another message to Luke. He tossed his lunch and her trash away and turned to read her note.
You could come over tomorrow, she had written, followed by her cell number.
“Um, let me get your number down real quick,” he said, pulling out his phone and taking a picture of the whiteboard. “I’ll text you tonight to see if that works for me. We need to get a our battle strategy worked out soon, before you become a fact engraved in the brain tissue of everyone here. Trust me, we’re like cyborgs here in Virginia. You could tell a Virginian the worst piece of gossip and it would get downloaded straight to the long term memory, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.”
He started to head down the stairs, but turned around. “By the way, I think you’d look pretty without the scarf, Brecklyn.”

“Ready to get Operation Convince Everyone to Like Scarf Girl underway?” Luke asked the moment Brecklyn opened the door.
Brecklyn smiled and nodded. Body language was quicker than writing stuff out, which also meant that she was now allowed to roll her eyes without getting in trouble.
Luke frowned, looking puzzled. “Something’s different about you. Something’s off... you look like a giraffe. Oh, you aren’t wearing a scarf! I told you that you’d look pretty without the scarf, Scarf Girl,” Luke said, smiling that smile that belonged on an eight-year-old. “Look, I got you a new package of markers. The green one is for sarcasm, the red is when you’re mad, black for just normal talking, orange for when you’re nervous and blue for being excited.” He held out the five markers that were hanging on strands of twine. He took the whiteboard from Brecklyn and started tying the markers to it for her.

Brecklyn led Luke up the stairs, where he managed to walk into the wall five times while he tried to tie knots that would hold.

“Now, we need a plan of attack,” Luke said, handing Brecklyn her whiteboard back and collapsing on the floor. He tugged pointlessly on his hair, still never giving up on that spiked-hair look he wanted but would never get.

Did you have any ideas last night?

“No. Well, stuffing the ballot box to get you ‘elected’ for the Winter Dance Queen, but that might just get you unwanted snob attention,” Luke said, setting his chin in hands. “Plus, it’s in two months. Way too long of a wait. Did you think of anything?”

No.

“Well, that’s a problem. Let’s brainstorm. Have you done anything really amazing in your life? Besides having your vocal chords taken out and surviving cancer? I meant like going to Africa to feed the poor.”

Brecklyn underlined ‘no’ so she didn’t have to write it again. She and Adi had experimented with underlining, bolding and trying every way possible write slanted for italics. The ultimate conclusion was that bolding was for emphasis and underlining was for making sure someone didn’t miss something or restating it if they misread it. Writing slanted was never to be attempted again.

“Neither have I. Let’s see...there’s always setting up something. There’s this one spot on Gatesway St. where there’s this huge bush that’s really hollow on the inside, so a lot of kids hide in there to throw fireworks in the road and stuff. Well, I could hide there and wait for a certain unsuspecting green truck driver- that was Teresa’s boyfriend, Chris, if you didn’t catch that- to come speeding down Gatesway. I walk out and stop deer in the headlights in front of Chris, at which point you run across the street to save me,” Luke plotted deviously. “Everybody will love you and the heart of the gossip hive- that was Teresa and her cheerleading squad, if you didn’t catch that- would be forced to accept the fact that you are now the best person in the school for saving the second best person in the school.”

Brecklyn leaned back in silent laughter. Luke joined in, considerably less silent, his scrawny frame shaking.

No. We’re not risking your life for this. Besides, hero = more snob points, right?

“Gosh dang it, you’re right,” Luke said, slightly disappointed that he wasn’t going to get to jump in front of Chris’s truck. He pulled up his hair again and jumped when the door opened.

“I brought you lunch,” Brecklyn’s mom said, dropping off a plate of cookies and another with quesadilla triangles on the floor.

“Thanks, Mrs. Blaine,” Luke said. He waited until she left before pushing the plates away and towards Brecklyn.

Brecklyn raised an eyebrow and jumped up to shut the door her mom and purposely left wide open. Her mom may have her ‘best interests in mind’, but Carly and Garret sure didn’t.

“I’m not hungry. I’m still full from breakfast,” Luke explained.

Brecklyn was positive that he’d texted her that morning saying that he hadn’t been hungry for breakfast if he could come over earlier. He must have decided to eat something when she said they better stick to the schedule and wait until noon if they didn’t want him to get chased out my her dad with a baseball bat, she decided, taking a quesadilla.

“Okay. So we can’t make you hero, we have to make people like you. They have to realize, completely unbiased, that you are cool.”

How?

“I don’t know, I’m still working it out. Is that Lord of the Rings Risk?” Luke exclaimed standing up and pulling it down from the shelf. “I think we need a brain break from all this thinking. Let’s play Risk. I call red orcs and trolls.”

Green eagles and elves, Brecklyn wrote.
“You better rewrite that in blue for excitement!”


“No, no, reroll! Reroll!” Luke cried, crawling after the dice. “It hit the board on a six and fell off on a one! Reroll!”

You can’t have West Rohan. It’s mine.

“Not if I reroll a six,” Luke said, smiling and combing a hand through his hair for good luck. He rolled the dice in his hand and stopped, lifting them high above his head. Opening his hand, he let them fall to the board.

It was a four and a one. Luke sighed and sprawled out on the floor in defeat.

West Rohan is mine!

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t rub it in. Bet you can’t get past my legion of trolls into the Brown Lands,” Luke said, reaching out to tweak one of the plastic pieces so they were in straight lines.

So? Brecklyn wrote. Why would I want the Brown Lands?

“Uh, because it’s the biggest piece on the board,” Luke reminded, moving the Ring to the Dead Marshes.

I don’t need the Brown Lands.

“You do if you want towin. Now, while you were busy fiddling with taking over Rohan through Arnor, you forgot to restock your troops. Don’t worry, I have and I am not attacking Forodwaich to begin my Arnor campaign. Have fun,” Luke teased, handing Brecklyn the defending dice.

Brecklyn sighed and shook her head when she saw her mistake. She had completely emptied her troops from Arnor to invade Luke at Rohan. Sure, she had kept a few pieces in bordering countries, but once Luke got past that, it would be a breeze for him to wipe through Arnor.

Then, the door opened to save Brecklyn from her impending annihilation. She lurched for her whiteboard to tell whichever sibling it was to go away, but it was her mom. She grabbed the whiteboard anyway.

“It’s time for dinner,” she said. “And Adi set the table for you, Brecklyn, so you have to clean up after.”

Okay, cool, Brecklyn wrote in green. Green for sarcasm. Luke smiled at their joke.

“Oh, you got new colors?” Brecklyn’s mom asked, turning to leave. “Come down and don’t forget to wash your hands.”

“You’ve escaped your doom for now, but I will get to the Shire in one turn, I promise. Unless I have really bad luck with the dice- again,” Luke said, helping Brecklyn up. Brecklyn doubted that even a few bad rolls could stop Luke from wiping her out.

Thankfully, Adi had taken the extra seat on the corner so Brecklyn could sit next to Luke. She made a mental note to do the same next time Adi had a friend over. Also, her parents had managed not to ask Luke anything about what his plans for the future were or worse- how he was doing in school. Brecklyn didn’t know for about his other classes, but he was failing AP Chem. In fact, they hadn’t asked Luke anything about himself and her dad had even offered to help with clean up so she could get done quickly.

Brecklyn stood up to take the dishes into the kitchen and took Luke’s plate. It was still full. He hadn’t eaten a bite. She set it down and pulled out the whiteboard.

You didn’t eat dinner, she wrote in black. She turned it around for him to read, but he didn’t look. Brecklyn sighed. That was the problem with not being able to talk. People don’t know when you’re writing to them. She pulled on his shirt sleeve and he turned around.

His face fell. Obviously he hadn’t wanted her to notice. “It’s nothing against your mom, I just wasn’t hungry.”

You said that about lunch.

“I wasn’t hungry at lunch either. I don’t eat very much,” Luke explained. He pulled on his hair, not sure what to say. “Look, I gotta go. I’ll see you on Monday, Brecklyn. Keep our game set up and don’t you dare move a piece!”

Brecklyn blew her hair out of her face and pushed her glasses up, feeling absolutely helpless. Not being able to talk ruined everything. She could never write out everything she wanted to and her side of the conversation was always too short. Brecklyn remembered when she used to be the extrovert who rambled and interrupted people left and right. Of course, her mom said this was a good change, especially the interrupting part, but Brecklyn simply didn’t feel like the same person without her voice.

“Brecklyn?” her dad called from the kitchen. “You still have to clean up, sweetheart.”

She sighed and picked up the stack of plates.

“Something wrong, Brecklyn?” her dad asked, taking the plates off her hands so she could write.

Luke left.

“Why?”

Because I found out he didn’t eat dinner.

Her dad smiled encouragingly. “Maybe he was allergic to lasanga. Lactose intolerant, maybe?”
Brecklyn shook her head and wiped the whiteboard with her wrist. She quickly scrawled out, He didn’t eat lunch or breakfast or lunch yesterday.
The she remembered their texting conversation the night before and added, Or dinner yesterday.
Her dad’s eyebrows scrunched together like they always did when he was confused or trying to think about something. “It could be a religious thing, but maybe you should look into anorexia tonight. Normally I would say not to pry, but as a friend I think you should. It’s not safe to go that long without food. You’re still on kitchen duty, so get the silverware off the table first.”

Brecklyn pulled out her whiteboard so she’d be ready for when Luke came. As she started on her mac and cheese, she considered whether or not to have her research on the ready. She decided to wait and whip it out if Luke tried to claim he didn’t have a problem with eating food like a normal human being.
“Hey, Brecks,” Luke said, hopping up on the ledge. “I see you aren’t wearing a scarf today, how does it feel?”
Weird, she admitted.
“Well, you like pretty with a neck,” he teased, pushing his tray away. “But I can’t call you Scarf Girl anymore. You can still call me Fat Man, though. That hasn’t changed.”
Brecklyn raised an eyebrow of concern, but Luke didn’t notice. At least he just confirmed yet another one of the symptoms of anorexia.
“But hey, let’s get going on a battle plan. We didn’t get very far on Saturday, but we still need people to like you. I thought of an idea. Since you can write, maybe you could-” he stopped and read the message Brecklyn was shoving in front of him.
No, she had written in thick, bold letters. We’re not fixing my problem until we fix your eating problem.
Luke sighed, ducking his head. “Look, Brecklyn, I’m really sorry about Saturday. Tell your mom I said sorry if she was offended.”
Why don’t you eat anything? Brecklyn asked, deciding to get straight to the point.
Luke shifted uncomfortably. “I eat in my other classes, honest.”

Don’t lie to me, Brecklyn wrote, underlining it in red for anger. She wasn’t completely angry, at least not yet, so she only underlined it.

“Brecklyn...” he trailed off. “Have you ever, once, totalled up all the calories you eat in a day? If I want to be in shape like the other guys who have all the girls, I can’t afford to eat all those extra calories. Especially not the school food.”

So you eat nothing? All day?

“Well, no... I guess if you put it that way, then, sorta,” Luke said, looking up at Brecklyn. His blue eyes locked with hers, and he seemed to be saying two things at once. His brain didn’t want him to give in, but his eyes were pleading with Brecklyn to help him.

He broke eye contact as his brain won over. “But forget about me, four thousand people still don’t like you. I’ve got a idea that I think will work.

She pushed her glasses up her freckled nose and erased her last message, thinking about what to say next. Maybe this was the advantage to writing instead of speaking. The phrase ‘think twice’ is impossible not to follow.

Luke carried on with his plan, trying to divert the attention back to her. “So I know the chief editor of the school newspaper, Mike Wallace, and he said that he’d be willing to give you a column. It could be anonymous until people like it of- what?” he asked, stopping to read.
4000 people not liking me doesn’t matter if you get hospitalized. Then I’ll have no one.
Brecklyn quickly added a ‘please, Luke’.
He looked down at his grilled cheese sandwich, bag of chips, milk and apple. He picked up the apple and tossed it a few times. “So if I eat my lunch everyday, you’ll try my plan to get liked?”
Brecklyn nodded.
“Do I have to eat all of my lunch, or can I just eat the healthy stuff? I’ll get salads and overdose on fruits.”
Brecklyn chewed the inside of her cheek, not sure what to say. She knew that she should say to eat all of it, but she couldn’t force him into a two thousand calorie diet in a day.
For now, she finally decided, you can just eat what you want
Luke smiled and took a bit of the apple, cringing a little.
“Deal.”