Description: Chapter One Miss Hiccup and the Beef Mailbox As I sat beneath a cat poster in her tiny, sparse office, I wondered if Miss Hiccup''s real smile resembled the painted grimace she wore around students. No adult human can be that chipper all the time. Maybe it was the poster. She had one of those motivational posters, with a cat hanging from a branch and the caption hang in there! below it. I''ve always wondered if anyone was actually inspired by that kind of thing. Maybe Miss Hiccup was one of the fortunate few who gazed at that cat and thought, You know, if that cat can hang in there, so can I! It would explain a lot about why she and I didn''t exactly get along. Miss Hiccup was pretty, in an institutional kind of way. She was a thin woman who wore pencil skirts and had long golden hair that was only a little dry and frazzled. I could relate--my hair always looked like I dried it with a high-voltage power line. Her face was not unkind. I could even imagine that she had a sense of humor hidden behind her big, fashionably nerdy glasses. Despite that, there were moments when I could swear there was an absolute, searing hatred of the entire world in those eyes. It was my favorite thing about her. My second-favorite thing about Miss Hiccup was the hiccuping. That was where I''d gotten my personal name for her. She had an actual legal name, but "Miss Hiccup" was more fitting and more fun because she seemed to have a permanent case of the hiccups that got worse when she was stressed, which was all the time, in my observation. When Miss Hiccup cornered me on my way to the bus, she ruined the best part of my day. Instead of boarding the bus to freedom, I had to trudge back to the counseling office for a few minutes and then kill time till the late bus arrived to collect the stragglers, detention inmates, and band kids. Miss Hiccup spent some time just sitting there, smiling and making eye contact. It''s the oldest trick in the book when you want someone to open up. Most people hate uncomfortable silences, so they tend to talk in order to fill them. I''m not most people. A minute later, Miss Hiccup hiccuped, twitched, and said, "Is your backpack okay?" Of course she wanted to talk about backpack-in-the-toilet incident #74. It was a new thing as far as she was concerned. The only reason she knew about it this time was because whoever had stolen it had really stomped it in good, and I wasn''t able to get it out on my own. The counseling office is directly across from the bathrooms, so I figured they could help, since I was a taxpayer and all. I made a mental note to ask the gym teacher next time. He was good at overlooking that kind of thing. "My backpack is fine," I said. "I switched to a waterproof one a while ago, so it doesn''t even smell. It''s antimicrobial." "Smart thinking," she said with a warm smile that was almost, but not quite, sympathetic. "I thought we could talk about fitting in . . ." "Why don''t I start?" I offered. "Do you have something you-- hic !--you''d like to talk about, Nikola?" she said, sounding like she was in desperate need of a drink of water. "No," I said. "But you said you wanted to talk about fitting in. I feel like I should address that. I do have trouble fitting in, but I''m in a good place with it at the moment. Not a lot of angst going on here. Nothing to concern yourself with." This was mostly true. I''d been looking forward to attending West Blankford Middle School about as much as I was counting the days until my next trip to the dentist, and the fact that my classmates were as horrible as they had been the previous year wasn''t exactly a shock. I wasn''t having a blast, but I wasn''t disillusioned. Kids are usually mean to people who are different, and people don''t come any more different than me. My name is Nikola Kross, and I''m a weirdo. A freak, if you prefer. I''m a peanut butter and sardine sandwich in a vending machine full of candy. I''m a twitching platypus curled up in the corner of a cardboard box of puppies. I''m off track. You should probably get used to that. Let''s back up a bit. I''m a thirteen-year-old girl attending middle school in North Dakota. It''s not my looks that make me odd. Well, that''s not the main thing. I''m no taller or shorter, bigger or smaller than the median range for those characteristics. I have a nose that is a bit above the normal width and length, but not to the point where it becomes remarkable. I have a few freckles here and there, and my eyes are brown. I wear glasses with shatterproof lenses and an embedded digital display that I designed myself and is currently broken. My hair is very curly, long, brown, and a bit mane-like. It''s always a mess, but I don''t care enough to spend the time to tame it when that time could be better used sleeping in. That''s what I look like. Do me a favor and remember it, because I hate describing myself. What makes me weird is that I''m a genius. Most people who say that are bragging and are about to pull out their Mensa card in an effort to impress you. I''m not bragging. I really am a certified genius, and it shouldn''t impress anyone. Talking about how smart you are is like boasting about how big the engine is in your car: you still have to obey the speed limit, and what really matters is where you drive to, not how much noise you can make on the way. High intelligence runs in my family like a genetically transmitted disease. My dad is an amateur scientist (he prefers the term research hobbyist ). He spends his days running our home particle accelerator, experimenting with exotic metamaterials, or just trying to remember where he left his shoes. Mom was an experimental poet, but she disappeared when I was a toddler. Dad says she''s dead now, or might as well be dead, since we''ve certainly seen the last of her. Sensitive guy, my dad. In case I haven''t lost you completely, we''re also fabulously wealthy. Back in the midnineties, Dad patented some interesting semiconductor designs as well as those plastic hooks that stick to your wall without tearing up the paint. Those inventions, along with a few dozen more, fill the bank account monthly. If it helps, that doesn''t mean I ride in limousines drinking sparkling cider. As soon as the deposits clear, Dad blows all the money on home improvements. That might be nice, but our home is a big lab, so for us, a "home improvement" doesn''t mean a new hot tub; it means a new supercooled cloud chamber or a few upgrades on our personal supercomputer cluster. To a degree, I blame my parents for my outcast status, and not just on a genetic level. Dad is distant and terminally distracted. Instead of toys, I got circuit boards and soldering irons for Christmas so I could make my own. When I was little and asked for a bedtime story, he''d narrate the schematics for a microwave oven before giving me a firm yet loving bedtime handshake. When I had trouble sleeping, he''d describe how people die from sleep deprivation. I like to imagine my mom might have been a bit more . . . parental, but if she and my dad fell for each other at some point, then I have to assume that she was every bit as eccentric. Some people just stink at being parents. It happens. It''s not all their fault, though. I''ve made some bad decisions. If you want to make friends in school, it''s not a good idea to bring an untrained robotic panther to class without permission, or to program a drone helicopter to follow you around and shoot chocolate candy into your mouth, particularly if its aim stinks. You should also avoid testing experimental artificial food products on your classmates. Silicon polymer foam birthday cupcakes might be calorie-free and nontoxic, and taste wonderful, but if you give someone explosive diarrhea even one time , they tend to hold it against you. I don''t entirely regret my bad decisions, but things weren''t easy for me at school. If someone sat down next to me at lunch, I first had to find out whether they''d lost a bet, or if they were planning some prank at my expense. This sometimes backfired: one time, I yelled at a girl because I was sure she was up to no good, but it turned out that the other seats were all taken, and she had to eat standing up. Still, she was rude to me the next week, so I don''t think I missed out on anything. You need to know all that because that''s why Miss Hiccup was talking to me. I''m not fitting in. Big surprise. "You see, honey . . . ," Miss Hiccup said, dragging the last word out like she was talking to an injured poodle, "I know you put on a brave face, but I''ve heard from-- hic !--from a lot of your teachers that some of the other children have taken to . . . um . . ." "To being awful to me?" I suggested. "Salting my chocolate milk? Insulting my parentage? Addressing me with the most derivative and unimaginative--" "Well," she interrupted, "as a matter-- hic !--as a matter of fact, yes." She de-tented her fingers, reconsidered the decision, and re-tented them. "I thought it might be helpful for you and I to discuss some st-- hic !--some strategies to help you mesh a little better with your peers. I think with a little effort on your part . . ." She went on talking, but I knew where she was going, so there was no point in waiting through the hiccuping. "Why aren''t you talking to them ?" I said. "They''re the ones being mean! Do you have any strategies you can discuss with my peers to help them stop b

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