Yolanda was lounging across their big queen sized bed. Her script was laid out on the bed but she was staring off into space. Melissa followed her gaze towards the window but didn’t see anything.

Melissa knocked on the doorjamb walked in. "Hey Yolanda, remember that time we took the roster from Brian’s school? What were those words on it? I need it for a report."

"We took the roster? You whined about getting caught, I took it."

"Well, anyway," said Melissa, "what were those words on it?"

"Melissa, get out."

"Mom said if somebody needs something for school you have to help. It’ll take a second," Melissa said.

"No, get out you little freak, all you ever do is school," Yolanda said, picking up her script.

"You’re doing school stuff."

"It’s different. This is my career; I’m not sitting around doing reports for fun like a huge weirdo."

"Your career? It’s a stupid school play."

"Better than your stupid report that I’m not going to help you with."

"You are not helping me with anything, I just need to look at a piece of paper."

"Mind your own business."

"Yolanda, just tell me where it is; I’ll look myself." Melissa crossed the room over to her desk and opened a top drawer.

Yolanda jumped off the bed. She snatched Melissa’s hand away and shut the drawer. "Stay out of my stuff, now!"

"Ooohh what’s in here?" Melissa said. She figured if she lost her chance to see the roster she could still get on Yolanda’s nerves.

But instead of wrestling over the drawer with her, Yolanda walked calmly out of the room and across the hall to Troy and Brian’s room.

"I’m going in the drawer..." Melissa called out. "Hi Richard!" Melissa heard Yolanda say. She slammed Yolanda’s drawer shut and ran across the hall. Richard was sitting across Troy’s bed, looking bored. Melissa looked around for Brian, wondering why he didn’t tell Yolanda to get out. She saw that the bathroom door was shut.

"I’ll know something very interesting about you and Melissa," Yolanda said. She leaned against Troy’s desk with an obnoxious smile on her face. Melissa gave her the meanest frown she could twist her face into, but that seemed to make Yolanda even happier.

"I doubt you know anything that is very interesting," Richard said. That gave Melissa courage enough to say, "She doesn’t, trust me."

"Oh, I don’t know about that...lemme see, what was that thing? Something about a girlfriend..."

"Shutup Yolanda!"

"Oooo!" Yolanda held up her hands. "Are you going to slap me in the face now?"

"It’s not true so shut up!"

"Yes it is.I’m sure Richard would love to hear alllll about it!"

"About what?" said Richard as Melissa went over to Yolanda and tried to cover her mouth.

"Shutup you twit!"

"Make me, nerd!

"Oooo, girl fight!" Richard sat up as Yolanda and Melissa struggled. Yolanda tried to push her sister away, but Melissa was a formidable opponent; she had already grown to be Yolanda’s size, something else which annoyed Yolanda.

"Richard, Melissa wants..." Yolanda started to say. Melissa managed to clap her hand over her mouth.

"I’ll leave you alone, okay, just shutup!" said Melissa.

Melissa heard the bathroom door open. "What are you guys doing in here?" Brian said.

Richard looked up at him. "Chick fight, man. This is cool."

"I know something about Richard and Melissa, don’t I, Brian?" Yolanda managed to say.

"NO you don’t!" Melissa said. They kept struggling. Yolanda was starting to get mad as Melissa kept clapping her hand over her mouth.

"Get off me you little fighting freak!" Yolanda said. She bit Melissa’s hand when it neared her mouth again.

"Ow!" Melissa screamed.

"Go for the body, Melis!" Richard said from the bed.

Brian grasped both of their shoulders and wrenched them apart.

"Brian, tell her to shutup!" said Melissa.

"Tell her to leave me alone or I’ll tell Richard," said Yolanda.

"Tell me what?!" Richard said from the bed.

Brian looked over at him. "Why do you care?"

Richard shrugged. "This is a good show."

"Show’s over," Brian led them towards the door, pushed them through the doorway and slammed the door behind them.

Melissa couldn’t resist a last taunt at Yolanda’s back as she headed to her room. "Ha-ha, you didn’t tell him," she said.

Without warning, Yolanda turned towards Brian’s door and said at the top of her lungs, "RICHARD! MELISSA LIKES YOU!!!!"

Melissa froze in horror. She barely heard as Brian yelled back, "Yolanda go away!" He said something else and they heard Brian and Richard laughing behind the door.

"I hate you," Melissa hissed at her. Yolanda grinned, and at that moment Melissa would have cheerfully fed her poison.

"So stay out of my stuff," Yolanda said. She went into her room and shut the door. Melissa went over and kicked it.

"What was that?" she heard someone say behind Brian’s door. Melissa heard someone going to open the door and she turned and ran into her own room. As she slammed the door she spotted her research journal. She stooped to pick it up.

She felt like throwing it into the garbage can. If it wasn’t for the project, she wouldn’t have suffered such humiliation in front of Richard. But after she calmed down, Melissa leafed through the pages she already had and decided none of her stupid brothers and sisters or their friends could do anything so good, and she put it away neatly in her desk.

She was glad she had her research journal the next day on the GT field trip. She had something else to do besides stare straight ahead with warm, red cheeks while everyone whispered about her.

Aimee had managed to do it again. She ruined a field trip that Melissa had been looking forward to.

Actually, it wasn’t so much the Planetarium Melissa was looking forward as it was the chance to get out of the classroom and away from Erika Biswan. Aimee usually just ignored her in G.T., except to give Eric Lysander a snotty look when Melissa asked a question. That was, of course, when she wasn’t ignoring him.

But right before they were about to leave, Mrs. Houston told the class about Melissa’s research journal and made her explain the sections. Normally Melissa would have liked showing off her journal, but as she was talking she saw Aimee and the rest of GT class talking in the back of the room.

When they got to the planetarium, which was in a nearby high school, everyone in the class grabbed seats together while Melissa was getting a drink of water. When she came into the room and saw them all there, her heart just sank in her chest and she sighed.

Before she could ask Blake if the seat next to him was taken Aimee said, "So I see you finally got your extra credit, Melissa. What’d you do, Baby Snitch, hold your breath until Houston gave you one?" That was the fad now, to drop the Mrs. or Mr. and call teachers by their last names only. Melissa heard Joey and Shane laughing at Aimee for saying Mrs. Houston. Now Aimee dropped the "Mrs" all the time, but to Melissa it sounded forced, like Aimee had to remember to be cool. She was so stupid; but she knew how to get Melissa.

This was the point where someone else would have chimed in, but everyone looked at the floor. No one ever spoke up for Melissa in GT, but they usually didn’t back up Aimee like Erika did. Melissa still thought they were jerks anyway.

So Aimee went on by herself. "Must be nice to have all the teachers in school hold your hand, huh Baby?"

Melissa started to say something, but stopped. She was so sick of telling everybody to shutup. That was all she did all day long, shutup Erika, shutup Aimee, shutup Yolanda.

"I should have thought of this skipping thing a long time ago!" said Aimee.

"Why don’t you skip to the 10th grade and commit teenage suicide then?" Melissa asked. She stalked past her the wide eyes and open mouths and sat down a few seats away from the class. She watched Aimee suddenly get up and run out.

That was odd. Usually Aimee and Erika laughed at everything Melissa said when she had to defend herself. Melissa guessed she wasn’t so brave without all her regular class friends. She noted with satisfaction that no one got up and ran after her, as four or five girls in Mrs. Houston’s class would have done. Of course, no one looked at her and told her to come and sit next to them. Who cared? She was sick of everyone.

She pulled out her research journal and a teen suicide book she brought with her and began to copy the warning signs of suicide into her journal.

"Is this seat taken?"

Melissa looked up. Mr. Cahill was pointing to the seat next to her.

"No," she said, looking down her book. She figured Aimee blabbed and she was getting in trouble. But when she glanced at the rest of class she saw that Aimee wasn’t back yet.

"Research?" he asked, tapping on the book.

"Yeah," Melissa said. She adjusted the book and the journal, which she was trying to balance across her knees.

Mr. Cahill offered to hold the book and read out the warning signs for her. Melissa handed him the book, figuring he wasn’t there to ream her about Aimee. He chatted with her about the project. After getting over the fact that everyone in the GT class was watching, Melissa began to enjoy talking about her project. It was nice to talk to someone besides her parents about what she was doing.

It seemed that things weren’t going so well for Brian either lately. For three days in a row no one came home with him after school. Finally, Melissa decided just to casually ask.

"Where’s Richard? There’s food still in the refrigerator." The family often joked about the amount of food that Richard and Brian ate during their afternoon snack.

"Sorry Melissa, your boyfriend couldn’t make it," Brian snapped.

That night he was yelling on the phone. Melissa thought she heard him say Maria, but her mother made her stop listening because she said Melissa was bordering on eavesdropping.

He and Pat continued to argue about the boy named Danny. Pat was still trying to get their parents to let her go to his party and Brian yelled at her to shutup about it before her mom or dad could say no. He kept frowning after he was made to apologize.

And the other day she heard her mother yelling at him about getting up at night and sneaking food after he skipped dinner. When she asked him what he was doing up, he wouldn’t answer her.

All in all, Brian’s life was starting to turn into hers, Melissa told Mr. Cahill.

He thoughtfully thumbed through her book. "Things not going to well for you either, huh?" he said.

"I’m sick of having to tell everybody to shutup," Melissa said. She knew that would make no sense to him, but she didn’t feel like talking about it.

"I guess everyone’s giving you a hard time."

"Not unless Aimee or Erika are around."

"You seen Aimee today?" Mr. Cahill asked.

Melissa looked over at the class and saw that Aimee’s chair was still empty. "I don’t know, I thought she was over there telling people not to let me sit near the real sixth graders."

"You guys are pretty tough on each other."

"Don’t look at me," Melissa said, "talk to them. I’m not the one calling people Egghead Baby Snitch for no reason, or put pictures of babies on their backs or tell the whole class not to sit with me at lunch." Melissa heard her voice wavering a little and stopped talking.

"Do you mind if I find out what going on?" Mr. Cahill asked her.

"I don’t care what her problem is, I just wish she’d leave me alone."

"Let’s see what we can do," said Mr. Cahill.

He handed Melissa her book back, patted her on the shoulder and got up as the lights went down. Melissa saw him leave out of a back door. She craned her neck up to see the imitation sky so she didn’t have to look at her G.T. class.

Melissa boarded the bus on the way back to school and sat in back. She was about to open her book again when she looked up and saw a red-eyed Aimee heading down the aisle. Melissa sat back and opened her book, preparing to ignore the latest onslaught, but Aimee kept on walking towards her, not saying anything. She sat down in the seat in front of Melissa. Her back was to the window and she faced the seat across the aisle.

"So how’s your report going, Melissa?" she asked without looking at her.

Melissa sighed and dropped her book. "Just leave me alone," she said.

"I guess you’re finding out all kinds of information."

"Yeah, whatever," Melissa said.

"Look, for your information I never told Erika and Shane and them to say all that stuff. I never did anything to you."

You were mean to me, thought Melissa.

"And you don’t even know anything about my sister, you don’t know what happened or anything, so why don’t you just mind your own business?"

This odd turn in the conversation made Melissa turn towards her. "What?"

"Just leave her alone. You don’t know her."

Melissa stared at the other girl, who continued to look out the window across the aisle, arms folded.

"No duh I don’t know her, so what?"

Aimee whipped her head around to face Melissa. "I know you’re doing that report just to get back at me. I said I was sorry when I found out that you didn’t tell on me, but you did the report on her anyway, that’s why people call you baby."

Melissa shook her head, so confused that she didn’t even react to Aimee calling her baby. "What are you talking about?"

"Hello! Do you speak English? I’m talking about the family studies report and my sister, stupid." Aimee spoke slowly, pronouncing every word.

Melissa did the same. "What the heck does my family studies report have to do with your stupid sister?"

"My sister’s not stupid," Aimee said.

"Ah!!" Melissa started laughing in spite of herself. This was the strangest conversation she had ever had. The whole thing was so dumb it was starting to be funny.

Neither of them said anything for a minute, then Aimee asked, "So lemme get this straight, you don’t know anything about my sister?"

"No!" said Melissa.

"Okay, okay, you don’t have to yell, geez," Aimee said.

"This is just like the tea party in Alice in Wonderland," she said, more to herself than to Aimee. "You’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met." Melissa said the other girl. She sat back in her own seat and went back to her book, preparing to ignore Aimee’s next comment.

But Aimee only asked a question. "So who are you writing your report about?"

Melissa looked at her research journal, which was flipped open to the "Basketball" section. "My brother I guess," she said.

"Why?"

"Well I..." good question. She had kind of forgotten why she started watching Brian in the first place. She wished Aimee would go back to ignoring her. "I need the data from a regular teenager to compare with the ones that have tried it."

"What does that mean?" Aimee said.

Melissa waved her away. "Leave me alone."

Aimee was quiet and Melissa tried to read again. Then Aimee said, "You don’t even know any teenagers that have tried to kill themselves, do you?"

Melissa looked up again. Aimee had a strange look on her face. "No," she admitted.

"Well, they can look as normal as anybody else. As normal as your brother."

The bus stopped and Aimee jumped up and got into the aisle before Melissa could say anything else.