Luna sits at the back of the sharing circle with her navy notebook pressed flat against her knees, her pencil tapping a fast rhythm on the cover. Three girls at the front table whisper behind their hands, glancing toward her every time she shifts. She pulls her sleeves further over her wrists and stares at a smudge of ink on her desk.
For weeks the same thing happens every morning. The three girls lean together when she walks past, their voices dropping to a hush, and one of them drops her pencil just as Luna bends to pick it up, laughing before she even reaches the floor. Luna starts arriving early and leaving late, taking the long way through the library so she never has to walk the hall alone.
On a Wednesday the girl with bubblegum-bright sneakers stands right in front of Luna's desk and says, loud enough for the whole class to hear, 'New girl still here?' while her two friends snicker into their notebooks. Luna's fingers curl into her palms, then uncurl, and she stands up — her chair legs scrape loudly against the linoleum. The room goes quiet except for the hum of the overhead lights.
Luna walks to the front of the class, her voice shaking but clear, and says, 'I don't like it when you talk to me like that.' She waits, her notebook still pressed against her chest, and the silence stretches — then a hand rises slowly from the back row. It's the quiet boy who always draws in the margins of his worksheets.
'Me too,' he says, and the girl in the bright sneakers actually steps back, her mouth open like she's forgotten what to say.
Luna sits back down and the quiet boy gives her the tiniest nod. The three girls don't whisper that day — not once.
When Luna walks to her next class, the hallway feels a little wider, a little less crowded. She doesn't smile, exactly, but she stops pulling her sleeves over her hands.
She doesn't smile, exactly. But her shoulders are lower, her steps are even, and the navy notebook in her hand feels a little lighter than it did on the first morning.