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“There aren’t enough healthy food options at movie theaters,” said hawk beak.

“You’re pretty enough to be a model,” Travis said to her right knee. His side bangs hid one of his big brown eyes. “You could win that contest.”

“Those reality shows are all scripted,” said Sumpter, their self-appointed group leader, gazing sternly above her head. “It’s not a real contest.”

Ava felt she was being assaulted. Put on the spot. Their words felt like needles prickling her skin. She hoped they would shut up before she had to tell them to shut up.

“Do you want to go to the movies sometime?” Travis asked her now, in front of everyone.

“I don’t know.” Ava pulled her sweatshirt hood up over her head. It was always freezing cold in the basement, and the folding chair seats felt like blocks of ice.

“That’s not appropriate, Travis,” said Sumpter, as if he knew the meaning of the word appropriate. He thought he was more well-adjusted than the rest of them because he had a real job—even though it was a crummy job, doing something with computers, the kind of job Ava would never want in a million years. Sumpter was afraid of anyone in authority. Any parent, teacher, and especially God himself, had to be consulted and obeyed. These guys were all big on God. “Does your mother know that you’re applying to be on America’s Next Top Model?” Sumpter asked Ava.

“I told you, I have a friend who’s helping me,” Ava said. “Nance. She’s like my grandmother. It’s just between me and her.”

“Ava is old enough to do what she wants,” Travis said, and gave Ava a sweet little smile.

“How do you get to be on that show?” the guy with watery eyes asked her.

“You have to apply, send in pictures, all that. I don’t have pictures. Nance’s going to help me get them.”

“Pictures like that are really expensive,” Sumpter said. “My mother used to be on TV commercials. She was on one for Lemon Pledge. You have to get like a whole book of pictures in different poses.”

“Nance is going to pay for them,” Ava said. She felt elated. They were actually having a conversation for once, a conversation that included her. True, they were asking her challenging questions, putting her on the spot, which she usually hated, but at least they were paying attention to her.

Hawk face said, “You have to be careful of people offering to do things for you. I learned that the hard way. There was this history teacher at my high school who offered to tutor me, and one day he asks me if I want to see his penis.”

“Did you see it?” said the man with the chapped lips who always wore a Sonny’s Bar-B-Q T-shirt, the guy who usually never said anything.

Hawk face twisted up his mouth in that painful way he had. “I did want to see it, just out of curiosity, but even I knew that he wanted more than me to just look at it. So I said no.”

“You missed your chance,” said Sonny’s Bar-B-Q. “I would have said yes.”

“Gross!” Ava said—yelled, probably. Her voice always came out louder than she meant it to. “Keep it down!” people were always telling her. She flopped over double. That’s it, she told herself. I can’t sit here anymore. And I’m not coming back here, not for anything.

She just didn’t like her own kind. She could understand why typical people avoided people with Asperger’s. They were obnoxious know-it-alls. Just like her brother, Otis. Mean, but true. Maybe girls wouldn’t be so bad, but she’d never been around any Asperger girls. It was depressing to realize that she didn’t fit in here, and she sure didn’t fit in with the so-called typical people. So what was left? Living with her mother for the rest of her life? She’d rather kill herself.

Her mother thought she was going to get into some fancy private college full of snobs and that somehow, miraculously, she was going to fit in and get straight A’s and become a famous scientist. Her mother just couldn’t face facts. She was never going to understand math in a million years. She’d passed her final algebra exam with a C, but no thanks to Nance, who