The first person to say hello to me was a nerd. Not one of those wannabe fakers, a real nerd. You can always tell the difference. Fake nerds wear suspenders and giant glasses and shirts that say “I <3 Nerds.” Real nerds aren’t like that. They don’t feel the need to prove to the world that they’re nerdy. They don’t do it for other people. Real nerds look slightly disheveled and often distracted and they wear shirts that say stuff like “√-1 Love Math” or “Never trust an atom - they make up everything” or three hundred digits of pi. They don’t often care too much about their appearance. They don’t try to look nerdy. It just happens because it’s part of who they are.

This particular nerd was wearing a shirt with the CERN logo on it. He had a notebook out and he was doodling a fractal - I found at second glance that it was the Mandelbrot set. The teacher had told me that there was an open seat to his left, so I took it. After a second he reluctantly looked up and glanced at me.

“Hello,” he said. I laughed.

“Hello,” I said.

“Oh! What’s your name?” he asked. I laughed again.

“Oh!” I mocked. “My name is Emmalie.”

He frowned. “It’s not nice to make fun,” he muttered. “Emmalie. Emily Noether was a mathematician. She was pretty cool.”

I wanted to say “I know,” but I didn’t. “Yeah, but it’s not spelled like that.” I wrote my name out on his paper. He nodded.

“Emmalie. I’ve never seen it spelled that way. I like it,” he said. I smiled.

“Thank you. So, um, what’s your name?”

His brown hair was spilling all over his face. “Um, do you want my birth name or what you should call me?”

“Either. Both. What I should call you,” I said. He laughed.

“Well, technically, on the record and such, my name is Jordan. But I go by Riemann.” He went back to doodling.

“Is that your last name?” I asked. He shook his head.

“No. He was a brilliant mathematician, though.”

I didn’t say “I know.”

“So, CERN,” I said. He nodded.

“Is that where you want to work, or what?” I asked. He shrugged.

“I don’t know. I just admire their work. I’m not really a science person, though,” he said. “You’re new, right?” he added after a second.

“Yeah, today is my first day. Yippee,” I said. He laughed.

“Yippee?” he mocked.

“It’s not nice to make fun,” I said. We both laughed.

“Well, you’re welcome to eat with me and my friends today at lunch, if you want. We sit in the corner of the cafeteria nearest to the gym,” he said.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll definitely consider it.”

A few seconds later, someone plopped down into the seat on my left. Her hair was almost ginger, somewhere between wavy and curly. Her perfect blue eyes were reflected in a thoroughly rhinestone-covered pale pink phone case. It said California, which I thought was funny, because we were in Idaho. She was the kind of girl who looked perfect, and I wondered briefly how she got her mascara to work so well. But it’s not like I was actively trying - I hadn’t worn makeup for weeks. She turned to me excitedly as soon as she realized I was there.

“Oh my gosh! Are you new? I almost didn’t notice you!” She smiled from her molars.

“Yeah, this is my first day. I’m Emmalie,” I said. She kept smiling.

“My name’s Abby. It’s good to meet you. Fair warning, though. This class is really boring, and I hate the teacher…” she said, getting out a notebook. For a second, I didn’t doubt it. History had never been my favorite subject.

“Ah,” I said. “Is that common? I mean, does everybody hate her? Or is it just you?”

“Oh,” she assured me, “Everybody hates her.”

I nodded, waited a moment, then turned back to Riemann. “Do you hate her?” I asked.

“Who?” he asked. He didn’t look up.

“The teacher,” I said.

“Hmm. Mrs. Kilcher. No. I think Abby is the only person in the school that can’t stand her. Well, that’s probably not true. Some of her friends are like her. I don’t know. No. The answer to your question is no.”

I was spared the response by Mrs. Kilcher herself, moving to the front of the room. The class hushed.

“Good morning,” she said. “Happy Monday!” She smiled and she seemed genuinely happy to be teaching. As she talked, she moved her hands way too much, but somehow it was okay. She used different voices and faces to tell the stories. I had never really enjoyed history, but it was all right. I glanced to my right. Riemann had torn out his Mandelbrot set and crumpled it up. He was holding it in his hand. His eyes were unfocused. As Mrs. Kilcher taught, Abby was playing a game on her phone beneath her desk. Riemann was staring at the whiteboard with his jaw clenched. The class passed in a stupor. I tried to take notes, but she talked really fast. I waited for the bell to ring.

“What class do you have next?” I asked Riemann as everyone was packing up.

“Chemistry,” he said. I waited for him to ask me, but he didn’t. I left for speech.

Abby was in my class. I was glad to get out of it. Third hour was English, and I was determined to make a proper friend. I had met a lot of people, but their names slipped my mind, and I hadn’t really connected with any of them.

As I entered the classroom, I saw Riemann. He was sitting in the back of the classroom in deep discussion with a tall boy with a bright blond strip of hair on the one side of his head.I hadn’t met him yet. His fists were clenched. Riemann leaned back in his seat with his arms folded. For a fleeting second, his eyes met mine. He said something to the other boy and then got up to meet me.

“Emmalie,” he called, walking toward me. I looked at him and nodded.

“Riemann,” I said. He sighed.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. ”It’s just - today hasn’t been the best day for me, and I just got some bad news. I promise I’m not usually this much of a jerk…” He trailed off. I smiled.

“It’s fine. You’re not a jerk,” I said. He laughed.

“There’s no seating chart in this class,” he said. “Do you have someone to sit with?”

I shook my head.

“Come on, then,” he said. “You can sit by Orwell and me.”

I followed him to the back of the room. He gestured to a seat in front of him. I sat. We were silent.

“Well,” I said. “Introduce yourself.”

The boy’s face turned abruptly red and then he smiled. “My apologies,” he said. “I go by Orwell. My real name though, if you care, is William.” I laughed. Who says “my apologies”?

“Orwell,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“Hey now,” he said. “Don’t judge. He was an author, a great one.”

I barely caught the “I know” before I said it. I bit my tongue. “So, this class. Hard? Easy? A lot of work?” I asked. Riemann shook his head.

“This is the easiest class I have,” he said.

“And English isn’t his best subject,” Orwell said. I nodded.

“You’ll need a notebook, though,” Riemann said. “We do these stupid journal things everyday. There’s a prompt and you have to write at least six sentences. They’re nasty.”

Orwell shrugged. “They’re not that bad,” he said.

Riemann pulled his eyebrows together. “They’re stupid,” he said.

Orwell laughed. “Sure,” he said. “Whatever you say, Riemann.”

“They would be better if the prompts were better,” Riemann said.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Orwell shrugged. “Suppose”. Who was this guy? They kept on debating the merits of the class as I pulled out a notebook from my backpack. I watched them without contributing; I didn’t have anything to say and besides, it was funny to see them argue. Riemann’s voice was light but his hands lay clenched on the desk. I figured I didn’t know him well enough to ask.

My fourth class was biology. I knew no one, and didn’t make any particular effort to meet anyone. I had friends.

Then there was lunch. I think I surprised them when I sat down. I set my lunch down, brown paper bag and all. Their faces slowly turned up to look at me. Riemann and Orwell, and a small boy with a mess of black hair that fell into his eyes. The only one who didn’t look up was a girl with crazy curly blond hair, poof-ing all over the place, almost like an afro, except longer. She was sitting with her head on her arms, her whole upper body collapsed on the table. Riemann raised his eyebrows at me.

“I’m surprised you came,” he said. “What happened to Abby?”

I laughed. “I decided that I would rather sit here,” I said. He tried to laugh, but it came out short and sharp and spiky and wrong.

“All right,” he said. “Whatever.”

Orwell looked at him and frowned. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something to his friend, but then changed his mind. He shrugged at me.

“Forgive Riemann,” he said. “It’s been a bad day.”

I nodded. I gestured to the mop-headed boy. “Who are you?” I asked.

He stuck his tongue out at me. ”I think the more appropriate question is who you are, you know, seeing as how you’re the newcomer here and I’m here every day.”

I raised my eyebrows. Orwell sighed.

“You’ll have to forgive him as well,” he said. “The difference is, Rutherford’s always this rude.”

“Rutherford,” I said, tipping my head toward the offensive mop. He stuck his tongue out again without saying anything.

Orwell nodded toward the girl. “And that’s Ada,” he said. I nodded. I decided not to ask. When Orwell wasn’t looking, I stuck my tongue out at Rutherford and tipped my chin up in a challenge. Riemann caught me though, and he snickered. Orwell turned quickly and looked at me. I busied myself with getting my food out. Nothing had happened. Riemann’s snicker had caught and now he was fully laughing, doubling over. Orwell tilted his head to the side.

“What’s going on?” he asked. I shrugged.

“Nothing,” I said. Riemann was still laughing. I sat down. Looking back, I think that’s the exact moment that I became part of their group.

The rest of my day went relatively smoothly because I knew that whatever happened, I already had a place where I belonged. I had friends to turn to. I had biology, then orchestra, then art. Orwell was in my biology class, although due to a seating chart I couldn’t sit by him.

I play the cello. It had always been a sort of release for me, a part of my day that I could calm down and relax and let it go and just play. I didn’t know anyone in my class - evidently the music nerds were separate from the group of assorted nerds I had fallen into - but it was still nice because it was something I knew. There’s not a ton you can miss in an orchestra class. If you can play the music, you’re fine. They gave me a Mozart piece and an arrangement of “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay, along with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was good. Once they discovered I was a decent player, everyone was friendly.

The art room was open and cozy at the same time, on the second floor, with huge floor-to-ceiling windows. After consulting Mr. Cariaga, who seemed pretty cool, and introducing myself to the class, I sat at a table in the back corner. I was shocked when Rutherford sat next to me.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” he said, offering his hand out. I took it. We shook hands for an almost uncomfortable amount of time.

“I suppose we did,” I said.

“Sorry,” he said. I didn’t really get the impression that his apology was sincere. “I just judged you too soon,” he said. “I thought you were too pretty to be cool. Well, anti-cool. Nerdy. Awesome. Whatever word you want to use.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Thanks, maybe,” I said. He laughed.

“Well, evidently you can be both.”

I didn’t notice Ada at first. She was sitting at a table by herself. I was surprised to see her face - she hadn’t moved at all during lunch. I hadn’t seen what she looked like or heard her voice. But she had her head up now. Her eyes were very blue. She had out a large sheet of paper, probably 11x17, I thought. She was sketching in pencil. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her jaw was clenched. Rutherford noticed me looking.

“Do you want to go say hi?” he asked. “She hasn’t met you properly yet, seeing as how she wasn’t really paying attention at lunch.”

I nodded. “Sure,” I said.

I followed behind him. I didn’t want to impose on her, but Rutherford just went straight up. He pulled a chair over and sat across from her, staring at her.

“Hey, Ada,” he said. She said nothing.

“I just wanted to introduce you to Emmalie. She’s new. She’s going to be hanging around with us and Riemann and Orwell now,” he said. I stood behind them.

“Gonna,” she muttered. Rutherford laughed.

“Oh, yes. I’m sorry, I forgot. She’s gonna be hanging around with us now,” he said.

“All right,” I thought she said.

“All right,” Rutherford said.

“All right,” I said. They both turned toward me and glared, Rutherford at my face and Ada at my hands.

“Do you want to say it or should I?” Rutherford asked. He didn’t take his eyes away from mine.

“Me,” she said. She clasped her hands together in her lap. “It’s not all right,” she said. “It’s alright. Both when you write it and when you say it. All right is an equal accent on both syllables of the phrase. But we don’t say it like that, it’s not common usage anymore. It has evolved. You don’t speak it as two words anymore either. It’s fast and definitely one thing. Why would we put a space in it? Plus, when you write it, alright is so much prettier, and I like pretty things.” She still wasn’t meeting my eyes.

Despite being chewed out, I smiled. I had never heard of anyone who used alright who had a legitimate reason. Usually the people who were incorrect were ignorant, but she wasn’t. It was a conscious choice. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it and I started laughing. Rutherford smiled. Ada turned up the corner of her mouth like she might smile, but then she stopped. She picked up her pencil and went back to her drawing. It was of a little girl in pigtails getting torn into pieces by a dark monster with gleaming eyes. I frowned and took a step back. I stared at her. She didn’t seem to be the type.

“Hey Ada, do you want us to go or stay?” Rutherford asked. Ada shook her head.

“Go,” she said.

Rutherford nodded and got up. He replaced the chair. I followed him back to our table.

“She was interesting,” I said. He smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “That speech you got about alright versus all right was the most characteristic thing she’s done all day. She hasn’t really been herself today.”

I nodded. “I’ve been hearing that a lot,” I said. He half-laughed.

“What, with Riemann?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s what Orwell told me. That he wasn’t acting like himself,” I said.

“Oh. Well, that’s true. And it makes sense, given the way Ada was upset and the way he cares about Ada.”

“The way Riemann cares about Ada?” I asked.

He bit his lip. “Yeah, he’s pretty much in love with her, I think,” he said.

I laughed. “He’s pretty much in love with her, you think?”

He laughed too. “I guess it does sound kind of ridiculous when I say it like that,” he said. “It’s just that he hasn’t ever said anything about it, and it’s not like they’re dating or anything. It’s just the way he looks at her and the way he listens to her and the way he talks to her. The way he reacts if anyone is rude to her. And it wasn’t always like that. But lately he always looks like he wants to kiss her.”

“He wants to kiss her?” I asked, still laughing. Rutherford made a face.

“You know what I said,” he said. I laughed again.

“Why does that make you so uncomfortable?” I asked. He glared at me.

“Leave me alone,” he muttered, getting out a half-finished drawing. I turned my head to look at it. It was of a bird, frozen in flight. It was more beautiful than I expected of him. I think everyone's true personality comes out a bit through their art. You can't hide who you really are when you're drawing. Rutherford interested me.