You Look Different in Real Life

camera with an arched eyebrow, a slightly slanted expression of Are you freaking kidding me?
    The photo next to it shows me with a short pixie cut, my hair brown-black then, my mouth open in the process of saying something, because in the second movie I was always saying something. Of the five of us, I’m the one who’d visibly changed the most. People thought that at eleven I’d dyed my hair and wow, that is so rad and how did her parents feel? Truth is, it just got darker naturally. But I didn’t correct them.
    I try to imagine what the new picture will be. My hair is once again shoulder-length. Sometimes I use a single barrette to keep it off my face. So it’s possible that I could just look like a larger version of my kindergarten self.
    Shudder.
    I’ve had five years, since they shot Five at Eleven , to get ready for this. After what happened that time around, I was sure the amazing journey had screeched to a halt, sparks flying, brakes burning.
    This is not a soap opera, folks. This is my life.
    And it is absolutely, positively as unamazing as you can get.

TWO
    T he next morning, my sister, Olivia, drops me off at school on her way to class. She’s a freshman at the college now but has discovered that zipping through her old haunts is a quickie feel-good fix. Like, she may still be living at home and failing two classes and been through three boyfriends already, but at least she’s not in high school anymore.
    “I’m stopping by Dad’s house tonight. I really can’t break the news yet?” she asks as I get out of the car. It’s my father’s handed-down Saab station wagon, which has turned out to be a surprisingly awesome set of wheels, even if it does have a forever-stink of moldy bagels andspilled coffee. She calls it Sob or, alternately, S.O.B., depending on whether or not it starts on a cold morning.
    “I know it’s torture for you, but no, you really can’t.”
    We’ve decided not to tell Dad about Lance and Leslie until we can all be together to talk about it. Olivia makes a pouty face and starts to drive away, then screeches to a stop. I hear the whirr of the passenger side window lowering and see Olivia’s oversize black sunglasses peeking out.
    “Hey, Justine?” she yells.
    “Yeah?”
    “You can just say no if you want to!”
    Despite the big round shades covering her eyes, Olivia is able to deliver a glance loaded with meaning, and then she speeds off.
    You can just say no. Is that true?
    My cell phone chimes with another text message—I’ve gotten about a dozen so far this morning and that’s an alarming statistical spike—and I head inside to check them. Once I step into the main entrance lobby, I look up at the rushing current of students moving past me. Most of them are doing something unusual in my direction: smiling, or flicking their eyes sideways, or actually saying hi.
    I know a lot of people. Some of them I hang out with and consider friends. Fortunately, it’s been five years since Five at Eleven and most kids have forgotten thatmy face was ever on a movie poster. There’s no reason for anybody to dislike me—at least I hope that’s the case—but I’m nothing special. I just sort of exist at this school.
    All that’s about to change, because when I glance down at the first message, I see it’s from a girl in my homeroom and it says, SO excited about the movie!
    Oh, crap. Word is out. And I know, instantly, how that word got a jet-powered blastoff on its speedy journey through the cell phones and social networks of our student body.
    I’m going to kill him.
    “Why, Felix? Why? ”
    “Oh, come on. You know you love it.”
    “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I don’t.”
    We’re in line for lunch in the cafeteria, where at least all the staring is concentrated in one place at one time. By now, there isn’t a single being at this school—not the kids nobody talks to, not even the French teacher who won’t let you address her in English—who doesn’t know. All morning, people have been asking me questions I can’t answer.
    When do they start filming? Is everyone else doing it too?
    My standard response is to shrug, while in my mind, I’m curled up at the back of a closet with the door closed,pleading go away go away go away.
    Felix, though, grins at them, all teeth and confidence. His face is so bright and open, his enthusiasm so uncomplicated, that for a second, I see the world he sees. It’s not a bad world. I’m sure it would be a lovely place to