Dear diary, my classmates don’t believe me.

High school was everything I hoped for, at least at first. Finally everybody didn’t know everyone already. I wasn’t the odd one out. I could finally make some friends! It took a bit longer than expected to get through all the assemblies. We finally finished off when it was time for lunch. I ate on my way to the library. New school rule 1, always make friends with the librarian. Danny made that one up. And the library, wow! It was the biggest school library I’ve ever seen.

And it was closed.

There was a piece of paper taped to the front door with ‘Open Tomorrow’ scribbled on it. Well, I wasn’t about to sit outside the door of my first class (maths) until the bell rang. I tried. That area was out of bounds during break. The teacher that told me off looked like she’d been telling grade seven kids’ the rules all day. So I didn’t let it get to me when she rolled her eyes and stormed off before I could apologise.

I found a shady spot and sat down. Dad always said that I should be great at introducing myself to people after changing schools so much, but I stopped doing that five schools ago. I know that this one will be the last, but... I decided to make friends at class. Those were the ones I’d be spending the most time with, so it made sense to start with them. When the bell rang, I put on my widest smile and marched to the classroom.

I was the first in line. Nobody else was there. I ducked my head around the corner and saw a few students dragging their feet my way. A boy and a girl came around the corner laughing and stopped when they saw me. The girl whispered something to the boy and they both laughed again. What was so funny? I wanted to ask, but more students arrived, all of them loudly chatting. And none of them alone, like me.

How had they all made friends that quickly? At least the teacher smiled warmly at me when he unlocked the door. He snapped his fingers and everyone went quiet. Then he put a finger to his lips and waved us inside. I sat in the front row. Someone behind me snickered. Everyone else was standing behind their chairs. I scrambled to my feet and winced as my chair scraped against the floor.

Our teacher leaned against the whiteboard. “Stay standing. I want to do a little icebreaker,” he said.

There were a few groans.

“Now, now. If I’m going to match any names to these faces, I’m going to need something interesting to remember you by. Plus, it gives you all a chance to get to know each other.” He glanced at me. “Think of two truths and a lie. I’ll pick whoever looks the most scared first in 30 seconds.”

I looked around the room as everyone frantically whispered to the person next to them. The girl next to me looked almost as scared as I did and was the only one else not talking. She was focused intently on her pen. It’s like she was trying to avoid eye contact with our teacher. But why? He was probably going to go through the whole class anyway. Why’s it matter who goes first?

He snapped his fingers again and silence followed. “Alright, any volunteers?”

I shot my hand into the air. He nodded. “I’m Emma Mack. My three things are: I almost got hit by a car on Saturday, this is my eighth school, and my neighbour has 900 books.”

“She doesn’t get the point of the game,” a boy said.

“Yes, I do,” I said. “You say two truths and a lie, right? That’s what I did.”

A girl scoffed. “Like those aren’t all lies.”

“I’m not... I didn’t lie! Well, I did, but only for one of them. We’re meant to.”

The girl next to me raised her hand. “Was it the 900 books?”

“Yeah. She has over a thousand.”

“You’re lying!” someone shouted.

“I can’t believe you almost got hit,” the girl mumbled.

“Don’t believe her, Cecily. She’s just making everything up to get attention,” the boy behind us said.

“But-.”

The teacher snapped his fingers. The other students turned to him like he’d just stolen their food. He glared back. “I will not tolerate this kind of behaviour in my classroom. If any of you want to participate in this kind of mob mentality then you will face detention. This isn’t primary school anymore. But if you want to act like little kids then you will be punished in the same fashion.”

The activity passed by smoothly.

When we got to sit down, I turned to Cecily. “Thanks for believing me,” I whispered. “Do you want to be friends?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the boy who spoke before. “Sorry, I don’t think we’d have much in common.”

I looked at the novel sitting under her pencil case. It was the same one I had on my desk.

I forced a smile. “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

It’s not like one class already hating me made a difference, even if they were going to be with me for the rest of the year. This was a big school. That just meant more friends to choose from. And at least my teacher liked me. Or at least, didn’t hate me. I think. And that finger snapping thing was cool. I’ll tell Mum and Dad about that. Then tomorrow, I can tell them about all my new friends.