Anastasia Black

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"This must be Stephanie!" Ivy exclaimed, hugging her. Stephanie only grinned.

"What do you want to be for Halloween?" Ivy was asking. "I want to be Elsa from Frozen," I reported. "Stacey, those dresses are like one hundred dollars online," Seth said. "I know. That's why I've been saving my allowance so I can buy fabric and sew it myself," I explained. "In Wisconsin, Stacey showed me a pink mermaid costume in a Chasing Fireflies magazine," Stephanie perked up. "It was twenty dollars."

"We could afford that," Ivy said. Stephanie blushed.

The next day, Ivy took me shopping for fabric and Steph tagged along.

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After what seemed like FOREVER, it was Halloween night. Stephanie was twirling around in her new mermaid costume. She absolutely loved it. And my Elsa costume was done. It looked beautiful. "Maybe it will fit ME next year," Stephanie said with a grin.

I grinned back, though I knew that she was so tiny it wouldn't fit her for at least two years. But why say that when she was so excited for trick-or-treating?

"I never went trick-or-treating at the orphanage," she said, wringing her hands. "They let us dress up with the dress-up clothes in the playroom. And they gave us each some candy corn. But that was it."

Poor Stephanie! The orphanage sounded sucky. But I didn't say it, because that orphanage had been her home for most of her life. But I was glad we had her now.

She asked all kinds of questions. "Do they really do tricks?" she asked. "Or just treats? Do the grown ups dress up? What kind of candy do we get? Will anyone jump out and scare me?"

"Usually just treats, some do, all kinds, and not on my watch," I said with a grin.

Stephanie relaxed.

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Trick-or-treating was a blast. We had so much fun, especially Stephanie. And afterwards, Seth and Ivy threw a big Halloween party and all kinds of their friends and family showed up.

They even let Steph and I invite our new friends from the Florida school.

Oh, that's right, you don't know about the first day. It's really boring, actually. Just a normal first day. But it was a good one.

Right away at the bus stop, Stephanie became friends with a girl named Ally. Ally's older sister, Abby, started talking to ME and we became friends. Stephanie and Ally had the same teacher, and Abby and I had the same homeroom teacher.

At the school, Abby introduced me to her friends, Jessica and Selena. Jessica was a real jerk to me, and later, Abby told me that her and Selena weren't really hanging out with Jessica anymore. Apparently, Jessica joined the Unicorns, a club of girls who find themselves the prettiest and most popular girls at school, but everyone else thinks they're absolute snobs. (Except some girls. They would die to be in the club. And somehow, Jessica made friends with Lila Fowler, the club's leader, though Lila's cousin, Janet, was the president.)

I decided that I hated Jessica. So unlike Gabby, I didn't give her another chance.