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“I’m down,” Whitney texted back. When Bobby invited her to the movies with the preps, she told him she had plans.

That evening, Steph called to give Whitney directions to her house. “Is Bianca going?” Whitney asked.

“Ugh, no. She’s so annoying and cocky,” Steph said. “I’m not inviting her.” Giselle, the only other prep invited, was going to the movies instead.

All of the other partygoers went to Steph’s old school, and most were black or Latino, drastically different demographics from Riverland. The guys wore hats with flat brims, baggy pants tucked into puffy Nike sneakers, and oversized zip-up hoodies. They rapped along with the background music. At Riverland, these attributes would classify the students as gangstas (or, as Chelsea later said to Whitney, “guido-ish”).

In the past, Whitney would never have gone to a gangsta party. Now, she was open-minded, uninhibited, and engaged, or at least acting that way, later calling it a “pretty cool culture shock.” She introduced herself to each new person who walked in the door.

The students were friendly, even as they chatted about dramas involving people Whitney didn’t know. She listened and laughed along anyway. Close to midnight, she heard one girl say to another, “I really like Whitney.” Whitney was having more fun at a gangsta party full of strangers than at most prep parties with friends. Better still, she felt at ease. She had been afraid that the gangstas would peg her as a prep as soon as she walked in the door, and ignore her for the night or ridicule her hippie fashion like the preps would. But they didn’t. The gangstas appeared to accept her without prejudice.

When Bianca found out that Whitney had gone to Steph’s party, she acted as if she’d been invited too. “Yeah, I didn’t want to drive all the way out for that,” she told Whitney.

DANIELLE, ILLINOIS | THE LONER

Danielle wanted to fulfill her challenge by starting small, but rejected my suggestion that she begin by smiling at people in the hallways rather than trudging with her head down. “It’s just plain weird to smile at someone you hardly know in the hallway. Chances are, you won’t be getting a smile back, and if you do, it’s one of those polite, awkward smiles, and they’ll be thinking, ‘Why is she smiling at me?’ ” she reasoned. Instead, she decided to start by saying a few extra sentences to people in class, even if only about that day’s homework.

On the last snow team trip of the season, Danielle sat alone in the front of the bus, silently berating herself for forgetting her iPod. Danielle was surprised to hear Shelby, the snow team president, calling her name from the back of the bus.

“Danielle! Come back here and be social!” Shelby shouted.

Danielle hesitated. She couldn’t think of anything to talk about with Shelby and her friends. And the only empty seat happened to be diagonally across from Margaret, a girl who annoyed Danielle. But Danielle was trying to turn over a new leaf. “Okay,” she said.

Shelby and her friends made no further effort to include Danielle. She wasn’t sure why Shelby had summoned her in the first place. When Shelby switched seats to talk to other students, Danielle returned to the front of the bus and spent the rest of the ride looking out the window. She had come alone on every snow team trip this season. At least, undistracted by socializing, she had improved her boarding skills. At one of the snow team resorts, she could now negotiate the black diamonds. At the other, she was able to tackle some of the hills that she couldn’t even go down on skis, and she had been skiing for years. She couldn’t do tricks yet, but the teacher in charge of the snow team said she was good enough that she could attempt tricks next year.

On the lift, Danielle recognized a couple of juniors from the bus, Stone Mill potheads who were fantastic boarders. One of them turned to her. “So how long have you been boarding?” Caleb asked. Danielle answered him.

“Where do you live?” he prodded.

“I go to Stone Mill,