"Sunny, you're up."

Miss Trask checked her clipboard and nodded to a twelve-year-old girl standing in a short line of mostly ambivalent tweens, waiting for their shot at humiliation on the climbing rope.

"Yes, ma'am," Sunny beamed and ran to the mat and bounced on her heels while she waited for Miss Trask's signal, rubbing her hands in anticipation.

"Kiss up," said the class bully under her breath, but loud enough that everyone could hear and several of her classmates laughed.

"That's enough, Phoebe," droned the gym teacher, so accustomed to reprimands that it barely registered in her mind or with the children in her care. "Whenever you're ready, Sunny."

The pale girl lept a foot and a half straight up and grasped the thick gym rope with both hands, dark brown ponytail lashing side to side, using her feet to pinch the frayed line beneath her. Strong arms pulled her slender body quickly upward while her legs prevented a premature descent, and with the agility of a hyperactive squirrel, she reached the top in a little more than seven seconds.

"Good," yawned Miss Trask, scribbling something on her form. "Careful coming down. Donna, you're next."

Sunny let herself down gently, dropping the last couple feet into a crouch and offered Donna an encouraging smile before joining those who'd already taken their turns, sitting in a line with their backs to the wall.

"You're such a showoff," moaned Enid Hougaard as Sunny leaned against the concrete and slid down to join her.

"We're not supposed to do our best?" Sunny gave her a tolerant look that came off condescending but they'd been friends long enough that Enid knew she didn't mean it that way. Sunny was incapable of artifice and that childhood deficit reached all the way from her heart to her face, but it wasn't always easy to interpret.

"You make everyone else look bad. Phoebe will have a fit when she can't get her fat butt two feet off the ground." Enid glared across the room and Sunny looked horrified.

Phoebe Boczek was a big girl who carried her extra pounds evenly giving her the appearance of strength she didn't possess, but what she lacked in prowess she made up for in flat out, unapologetic meanness, and between that and her size, she avoided most physical confrontations. If she pushed things too far, she'd get the teachers involved, spinning wild lies they'd never believe but dared not investigate for fear of Mister Boczek who shared his daughter's enthusiasm for trouble.

"Don't say that so loud, if she hears you..." Sunny began.

"I don't care anymore, I'm tired of her crap." sighed Enid, parking her chin in one hand. "She'll have to catch me if she wants to fight." Enid's leggy height gave her a particular advantage in speed. She was the only one in their class who could beat Sunny in a foot race, including all the boys. Except one.

"She doesn't need to catch you, she's got her squad," Sunny warned.

Enid snorted a laugh, "You mean Beth and Amy?"

"And Makayla, and Suzanne, and Erika..." Sunny counted off on her fingers.

"They just do what she says because they're scared. If Phoebe isn't around they'll back off." Enid replied sagely. Truthfully, Enid was taller and more athletic than Phoebe or her lackeys and Sunny suspected none of them would risk a direct confrontation without outnumbering her at least three to one. "Besides," she continued, still eyeing Delphi Elementary's seventh-grade scourge, "you've got my back."

"Sure," Sunny groaned, "you and me against the world. Maybe they'll bury us together and put that on our tombstones."

"Oh stop whining, you could kick her ass if you wanted." Enid turned dusky eyes on her that were the exact color of Hershey's Special Dark chocolate.

"Enid! Watch your language, you'll get us both in detention." Sunny snuck a quick peek at Miss Trask who was busy showing Donna Hewitt how to grab the rope. Enid shrugged and rested her head against the wall with an audible thunk.

Sunny's best-friend-forever had a perpetual chip on her shoulder that made her inappropriately bold, occasionally landing them both in trouble. Her father was half Cherokee and half Danish, and her mother, a Moroccan immigrant with Chinese and African heritage. She checked all the ethnic boxes, and that was the problem.

Caught between a few racists telling her she couldn't fit in because of her skin color, a lot of advocates telling her she couldn't fit in for every other reason, and everyone else who walked on eggshells around her terrified of committing some obscure offense, she had to stake her own claims and tell the rest of the world to take a flying leap. In Enid's own words, the worst thing you could be was, "a crusader on either side fighting over crap that never belonged to you."

The bully squad kept to itself after gym, probably because Phoebe had a note that excused her from climbing the rope and the subsequent embarrassment she'd have taken out on other students. Sunny and Enid returned to their homeroom with Mrs. Kolas, survived geography and a math quiz, then parted company with a mutual longing for the fast-approaching weekend.

The town of Delphi wasn't very big and Sunny didn't live far from the all-grades school building, so she often jogged home unless weather got in the way. She passed fat wooden posts strung with barbed wire designed to keep the cows from taking over. They did, after all, outnumber humans in Delphi by a fair margin. Corn was the dominant crop because ethanol companies were paying a premium and she passed row after row of giant green stalks marked with signs that said "experimental" and "not for human consumption." The largest farmstead, owned by old Mister Parson, cultivated everything except corn, but mostly wheat and oats. It had the best smells, and Patriot the Appaloosa would always race along the fence with her until they had to part with a neigh and a wave until the next school day.

She was in such a good mood by the time she got home, she even called out a greeting to Wil, the hulking brute of a boy who rode his bicycle past her without so much as a hello nearly every day. He was in her class, but that's as much as she knew, except he was quiet, could sprint like a fox with its tail on fire, and stood almost a head taller than anyone else in her grade.

"Mom, I'm home!" she said, throwing open the kitchen door and tossing her book bag onto the little table they used for family meals, pausing only to turn askew one of several My Little Pony figures that sat on a shelf over the sink.

"I'm here!" her mother called back from the living room. She sat on the floor with Ruckus, their six-year-old shaggy mutt, panting gleefully in her lap while she scratched his belly, the glow of the television illuminating them both. Sunny vaulted the arm of the couch, landing awkwardly face down in the cushions. Mom laughed.

Mom loved slapstick, and she'd spend hours watching cartoons and old black and whites like the Tree Stooges or Laurel and Hardy. Sunny loved her mother's laugh and she never lost an opportunity to illicit one if the moment was appropriate. "Have a good day?" Sunny asked.

"Yeah," mom said when she caught her breath, "Ruckus was naughty. I cleaned up after him. Mister Caloran brought groceries. He's so nice! He only let me pay for half. I watched Oprah. Had a really bad itch. Couldn't reach it so I got out the yard stick. Oh, remind me to put it back!"

"I'll take care of it, mom," she started looking around for it.

"No. I got it out, I should do it." She moved to an armchair and continued talking. "The news was scary..."

Sunny listened patiently, smiling and kicking her feet while her mother went on, listing the details of her day in the order that they were important to her. To Sunny, it was like a magic spell, and it could enchant her for hours.

Audrey Summers had Down's Syndrome, and a lot of people underestimated her. There was a lot she couldn't do on her own, sure, but there was an even longer list of things she could, and there wasn't a soul in town that didn't adore her. People were constantly stopping by to help out since dad died. He'd had Down's Syndrome too, and at first, Audrey Cook's marriage to Mark Summers struck everyone as a bad idea, one of the worst ever depending on who you talked to, but they were legal adults and each had lived on their own for more than a year before they met. Against all advice, some of it very sternly worded, the couple wed on a Sunday at the beginning of Spring and, beating the odds, had Sunny three days before Christmas the following year.

Sunny was aware she didn't have the experience to know every sort of person there was or could be, but she would have bet anyone everything she had that no parents in the world could have out-loved hers.

When mom started to wind down, Sunny engaged her in conversation, talking about school and friends. Audrey loved Enid like a second daughter, and always appreciated news about her, even if it was boring or a repeat of the day before.

After half an hour, Sunny excused herself, "I need to get started on my homework. Are you going to keep watching TV?"

"No, I'll work in the garden before it gets dark. TV makes my butt big."

Sunny laughed and hugged her, "You're beautiful, mom. Don't stay out too late. I'll start dinner in a bit, okay?"

"Okay, Nugget. You're beautiful too." Audrey kissed her on the cheek and left through the door Sunny had entered, but not before noticing and straightening the pony she'd moved, "You punk, leave my horses alone!" she called from the kitchen, annoyed but not mad. Sunny smiled wistfully and dashed up the narrow staircase to her tiny room.