Generation Misfits

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

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  To Danielle—for Oreo milkshakes, too many tacos, and midnight adventures

  CHAPTER ONE

  When the mustard-yellow bus appeared at the top of the hill, eleven-year-old Millie Nakakura felt her heart triple—no, quadruple—in beats per minute. It was like watching the sun rise on the horizon, signaling a new day.

  And today, everything seemed new.

  She had a new haircut—bangs and a bob, which had only sort of turned out like the photo Millie had shown her mom. She had a new pair of red Converse, and a new backpack decorated in smiling pieces of sushi and rice balls. She had a new binder covered in all her favorite Pokémon, which she was certain would be a great conversation starter. (How could anyone not think Alolan Vulpix was the absolute cutest?) She even had a new pad guard for her flute, which some might argue was exciting to absolutely nobody, but those people had never met Millie’s dad.

  And most important of all, Millie was starting sixth grade at a new school. Her first school, really, because being homeschooled always felt more like “home” than “school.”

  Millie looked toward her parents at the front of the car. Her mom checked her hair in the mirror, again and again. Her dad drummed his fingers against the steering wheel almost exactly in time to Millie’s racing heart.

  Maybe nerves were similar to sneezes, and you could pass them off to other people.

  Not that her parents had any reason to be nervous. None of this was new to them. They’d already experienced classes and teachers and best friends.

  A smile grew in the corner of Millie’s mouth.

  Friends.

  It sounded like all the hope in the world bottled up in one tiny word.

  Millie could feel her face giving away everything she was thinking. She was worse than an open book—there might as well be a flashing neon sign above her head, because anybody in the world could take one look at her and know exactly what she was feeling.

  She hadn’t been this excited since Generation Love released their second album last year. The fact that a new school could compete with the world’s greatest J-Pop group was kind of a big deal.

  Millie clutched her flute case in her lap. The silver YAMAHA logo caught her eye, reminding her of all the arguments it had taken to finally convince her parents to let her attend a real school. She’d threatened to quit flute, though she wasn’t sure the choice to quit was really hers at all. But it made her parents discuss their options. Or rather, the only option: Brightside Academy, a K-to-twelve magnet school for performing and visual arts.

  It was a compromise—Millie had to keep doing the one thing she hated in order to have the one thing she wanted more than anything. But maybe flute wouldn’t be so bad at Brightside Academy. Band seemed like as good a place as any to make friends.

  And the chance to go to school and make friends was all she’d ever wanted.

  Most wishes were fleeting and forgotten, like shooting stars and fountain pennies. But some wishes stuck. Permanently.

  And every now and then—when the planets aligned, and there was a full moon, and some otherworldly presence was feeling generous—some wishes could come true.

  Even the big ones.

  The school bus slowed to a stop next to the curb, and a flickering red stop sign appeared.

  Millie took a breath and reached for the door handle, freezing in terror when her parents did the same.

  “You don’t have to go with me,” she said hurriedly, eyes scanning the herd of students on the nearby pavement. Emphasis on students—not parents.

  Her mom, Jane, turned around, confusion swarming her hazel eyes. “We just want to say hello to the bus driver. I think it’s important to know who’s driving our eleven-year-old daughter to school every morning.”

  “But parents don’t do that,” Millie blurted out. She could see the way her mom was moving closer to the door, like she had already made up her mind.

  Millie begged every star, penny, and four-leaf clover in the world not to let her parents get out of the car. Because this was her new beginning—she wanted it to be perfect.

  Perfect did not involve her parents walking her to the school bus like she was a toddler who couldn’t go anywhere without having her hand held. They’d already insisted on driving her to the bus stop so she didn’t have to walk nearly a mile on her own. Wasn’t that enough?

  Millie’s mom frowned. “How do you know parents don’t do that?”

  Millie was prepared. She had to be when it came to her parents. “I googled it.” It wasn’t a lie. Millie googled everything. Not knowing things made her anxious, and if there was ever a sliver of hope she could win an argument against her parents, she needed to be a walking Wikipedia page.

  Her dad, Scott, turned to the side and shrugged matter-of-factly. “Well, if she says she googled it…”

  Jane looked back at him with a raised brow. They were having a silent debate.

  Millie’s desperation grew as the crowd outside the window began to shrink. “Please? I don’t want to be late.”

  Finally, a sigh. Her mother’s fingers drifted away from the handle.

  “Okay, fine,” Jane said. “But call us if there are any problems at all.”

  Scott looked over his shoulder. “No cell phones in class.”

  Jane eyed him testily. “Unless there’s an emergency.”

  “If there’s an emergency, the school will call us. Besides, you said problems—she’s starting school, not a job on an oil rig.” He turned around. “Don’t call us unless you have to, and do not answer your mother if she texts you during school hours.”

  Unless it’s an emergency, Jane mouthed with a small smile.

  Millie nodded too many times. “Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad.” She threw herself from the car and bolted for the dwindling line at the parked school bus.

  She tried to pretend that her parents weren’t watching her every move, even though she knew they would be, somewhere in the background.

  But at least they were finally in the background, and not front and center, for once. It would take her a while to get used to such a concept.

  Millie’s heart thumped harder with every step she took up the stairs, down the aisle, and into one of the navy blue seats. And it raced the hardest when her eyes landed on all the new faces around her.

  Classmates. Peers. Friends.

  At that moment, the possibilities felt infinite.

  Maybe tomorrow one of them would even be sitting next to her. They could talk about teachers, and homework, and how hard it was to remember their locker combinations.

  Millie bit down on her lip and tried not to think about throwing up. Because even though she was excited, she was nervous, too.

  Because what if nobody liked her?

  She clasped her hands, shoved them in her lap, and forced her eyes out the window, hoping the view of the familiar Oregon suburbs would calm her down.

  What did she
really have to worry about? She was going to school as a band major. By default, she already had a million things in common with everyone. Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Handel … And okay, maybe Millie didn’t particularly like any of those things—classical music had nothing on J-Pop—but there were bound to be kids she had things in common with.

  Right?

  Thirty minutes later, the bus pulled up alongside the collection of buildings that formed Brightside Academy. Millie had visited the campus for orientation, but with an army of yellow buses outside and students socializing in the courtyard, everything felt different. More colorful, somehow.

  Which made sense, because Brightside Academy encouraged its students to express themselves. It was uncommon to have a school with such a relaxed dress code—especially when that dress code also involved a uniform. But at Brightside, students took their fashion choices very seriously.

  Millie adjusted her tie and sweater-vest self-consciously. Her mom had been certain the red Converse would be too loud, but it turned out there were things even Jane Nakakura didn’t know. Because individual footwear was just the beginning of a very long crescendo.

  Students had hair in nearly every shade of the color wheel. They wore jewelry, and patterned socks, and had backpacks decorated with fuzzy key chains. They carried paint canvases, instrument cases, and big duffel bags with the names of dance schools and theater companies printed along the sides.

  They looked like they belonged at Brightside Academy. Which made sense, because most of them had been going there since kindergarten.

  It wasn’t just that the school felt different.

  It felt alive.

  Millie grinned, the buzzing in her heart shooting through every vein in her body. She was alive, too, and it felt electric.

  They had to accept her. Because she wanted to feel like she belonged there, too.

  And for one brief moment, she was too hopeful to be afraid.

  Crossing her fingers on both hands, she closed her eyes, took a breath, and joined the crowd.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Millie’s embarrassment coiled through her. Her eyes drifted toward the rest of the students scattered around the room—the ones who weren’t in the wrong homeroom. Maybe they weren’t listening. Maybe they weren’t paying attention to Millie’s big mistake at all.

  Two boys with nearly matching floppy hair exchanged glances and grinned.

  It was enough to make Millie certain everyone was silently laughing at her.

  The homeroom teacher held the yellow slip of paper toward Millie and pointed to the whiteboard. “The homerooms are alphabetical. This one is for names starting with M.”

  Millie fumbled for words, her grip on her flute case tightening. “My name is Millie.” Was that even her voice? It sounded a million miles away.

  The teacher let out a noise of understanding. “Ah. Yes, but it’s alphabetical by last name. Na—Nako—” She squinted hard at the paper. “Nay-ko-kara?”

  Millie wasn’t sure if it was rude to correct a teacher—it was pronounced Nah-kah-koo-rah—so she stayed quiet.

  “You’re looking for the N to O room, with Mr. Holland. Do you know where the Science labs are?” the teacher asked before rattling off a few quick directions.

  Some of the students giggled. Millie felt like every spotlight in the world was pointed right at her. All she wanted to do was flee.

  The teacher handed her the yellow schedule, and Millie stepped quickly into the empty hallway and headed for the Science labs. It was eerily quiet, like a shopping mall first thing in the morning. All the doors had little windows above the handles, so each time she walked past and looked inside she could see a classroom full of students.

  She was very aware of being on the outside looking in.

  Millie tried to fight the tremble in her shoulders. She wanted to be in a classroom with everyone else, meeting new people like everyone else. But instead she was the only person in the entire school who had turned up to the wrong homeroom.

  Did everyone know that “alphabetical” meant “alphabetical by last name”? Would Millie have known, too, if she hadn’t missed the first six years of public school? And if so, what else was she bound to get wrong?

  It was a silly mistake. A small one, even. But to Millie, it felt like she’d face-planted in front of the entire school.

  By the time she found her homeroom—she got lost, twice—Mr. Holland was wrapping up.

  “Well, hello,” he said when he saw Millie in the doorway. “A straggler.”

  Millie felt her ears burn when everyone in the classroom turned to look at her.

  Mr. Holland didn’t seem to notice. He held out his hand. “Schedule?” he asked, taking the piece of paper from her. “I see we have Earth Science together for first period. So unless you get terribly lost finding your seat, you won’t have to worry about being late for your first class of the day.” He chuckled, and a few of the other students joined in.

  Millie blinked, not sure if she was supposed to be in on the joke, or if she was the joke.

  Mr. Holland gave her a packet of information and some forms her parents would need to sign. She took a seat in the back of the classroom and tried to tell herself things would get better as soon as she calmed down.

  But things didn’t get better.

  Even though she wasn’t late for first period, Millie got lost on her way to Math and walked in during roll call. She was relieved to be on time to third period—until she realized she’d left her flute in the Math room. Too embarrassed to tell the teacher, she waited until the bell rang to run back to get it, so she was late for fourth period, too.

  By the time her lunch hour rolled along, she was convinced everything was going wrong. And the worst part was, not one student had said a word to her all day.

  Generation Love had a song about taking charge of your own destiny. Millie had listened to it so many times she’d memorized every word—despite the lyrics being in Japanese. It had a good beat, and the choreography in the music video was amazing, but it was the meaning behind the words that tugged at Millie’s heart the most. They taught her to be brave. To take charge.

  It was the same song that gave Millie the courage to tell her parents she wanted to go to a real school.

  And maybe a little bit of courage was still lingering around, waiting for Millie to reach for it. She couldn’t change the fact that the morning had gone horribly, but maybe she could start over. Maybe lunch could be like a fresh start—a second chance to meet new people and enjoy school and not mess anything up.

  Millie took a breath and lifted her head. Maybe all she had to do was be brave, just like Generation Love said.

  Millie stepped into the cafeteria and felt immediately overwhelmed. It was chaos. Everyone was filling the empty chairs so quickly Millie started to worry there was a seating chart she didn’t know about. And if there wasn’t, what was she supposed to do? What were the rules? Did she just put her things down at a table and say hello to the people sitting there?

  Something told Millie it was a lot more complicated than that.

  She adjusted the straps on her backpack and decided she’d worry about where to eat once she got her food. With nervous steps, she made her way to the lunch line and copied everything the person in front of her was doing—she grabbed a red tray, picked up a carton of strawberry milk (even though she preferred chocolate), ordered a chicken burger, fries, and coleslaw, and then paid the man at the register. It seemed logical that as long as she was doing whatever the person in front of her was doing, she wouldn’t mess anything up.

  When the student she’d been copying sat down at a nearby table, Millie tried to quell her nerves. All she had to do was find an empty table. Once she was seated, she could gather her thoughts and try to forget the entire morning.

  She could reset.

  Millie only managed two steps before she tripped over her own feet and stumbled forward, crashing into a girl
with dark curly hair.

  Fries flew everywhere. The chicken burger split into three sections and landed at the girl’s feet. And the coleslaw splattered all over the girl’s sweater-vest—a sad, gloopy mixture of cabbage, carrots, and mayonnaise.

  “Oh my God!” the girl shrieked.

  Millie opened her mouth to apologize. She was pretty sure she managed the words, but she also couldn’t feel her mouth move, or hear her voice, or focus on anything other than the girl’s flailing hands in front of her.

  Some of the kids turned to see what had happened. A few looked concerned.

  But most of them had erupted in laughter.

  “I didn’t mean to—” Millie stopped. Was that her voice? It sounded like a squeak.

  The girl held up her hands, suddenly aware there were people laughing. “It’s fine.” She looked over her shoulder at her two friends who were watching Millie with curious, peering eyes. They looked angry on their friend’s behalf, even though the girl covered in coleslaw looked more embarrassed than anything.

  Millie knelt to the floor and began plucking stray fries from the linoleum.

  The girl hesitated for a moment, conflicted. Millie got the feeling she wanted to help.

  “Come on, we’ll help you clean up in the bathroom,” one of her friends announced, the metal legs of her chair screeching as she stood up. The other girl followed.

  The curly-haired stranger glanced briefly at Millie before turning toward her friends.

  As they started walking away, Millie heard one of them say, “So gross. Who actually asks for the coleslaw? Everyone knows cafeteria coleslaw is the worst.”

  Millie’s cheeks turned beet red. Nobody had told her about the coleslaw. Nobody had told her anything.

  She cleaned up as quickly as she could, set her tray on the lunch cart, and shakily walked back through the cafeteria, unsure of what to do next.

  Every table looked full, which only amplified the fact that there was no room for her.

  All she wanted was a friend. Just one. One person to make her feel like coming to Brightside wasn’t the worst decision she’d ever made.