on!” Livie whined. “Don’t Sloane and I get a say?”
I choked on a bite of chicken. “You want me on your team?” I’d already been plotting ways to avoid the whole thing.
“It’s part of your First Day Buddy experience. Mrs. Zalinsky was adamant about me including you on my team.”
Damn Mrs. Zalinsky and her thoughtfulness. “You really don’t have to—”
“Nope,” Sawyer interrupted. “There’s no getting out of it. You have to be on our team.” He patted my arm like he was comforting a confused senior citizen. “You’re part of the club.”
I opened my mouth then closed it, trying to figure out where he was going with this. “What club?”
Sawyer widened his ever-present grin. “You are Sloane Sullivan, right?”
My heart stuttered, but I plastered on a teasing smile. “Who else would I be?”
Jason’s eyes lit up as he held my gaze. “Two first names,” he explained.
I tore my eyes away from Jason to study Sawyer and Livie. “Wait. Do all of you have two first names?”
Livie pointed as she identified each of them. “Jason Thomas, Sawyer James, and Liv Dawson.”
Leave it to Jason to find a whole club. “Okay, but does Sullivan really count as a first name?”
Jason nodded. “It was my grandpa’s first name, remember?”
Memories I hadn’t thought of in years danced in my head: Jason’s grandpa dressed like Santa every Christmas, the way he’d pull quarters from behind my ear, going to his funeral when we were nine. My pulse raced. Is he asking if I remember all that?
“I said that when I saw your schedule this morning,” Jason continued.
I blew out a silent breath.
“There’s that cute actor from the FBI show with the tattoos. His first name is Sullivan,” Livie added, unaware of my momentary panic. “Oh, and the singer for some punk band I’ve never heard of before. Some girls were talking about him in class the other day.”
“Plus,” Jason said, “your first and last name start with the same sound. That cancels out the fact you think it doesn’t count.”
When Jason smiled, I couldn’t help but smile back. An obsession with both Superman and Spider-Man when we were little made him believe that anyone with first and last names that started with the same sound could really be a superhero in disguise.
Livie made a dismissive noise. “Of course they’ll count Sullivan. My last name’s Dawson and they let me in.”
“Dawson’s a first name,” Sawyer insisted. “What about Dawson’s Creek?”
“It’s a fictional first name,” Livie said. “Have you ever met a real person named Dawson?”
Sawyer laughed. “Some of us like having a first name based on a fictional character, right, Sloane?”
I turned to Sawyer. “How’d you know my name is based on a fictional character?”
He shrugged. “The only Sloane I’ve heard of before is from that movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
My skin tingled as the very first time I had to pick a name—the time I’d accidentally started naming myself after fictional characters—popped into my head.
My dad spun in a circle, his eyes bouncing around the room without ever landing on anything, like he was in a daze. “What else?” He wrung his hands together. “Underwear. Did you pack underwear?”
My gaze darted to two burly guys in suits huddled between my twin bed and the desk Jason helped paint blue and purple. They were mumbling to each other, oblivious to the underwear comment. I studied the tiny duffel bag on top of my flower bedspread. “Yes.”
“We really need to get going,” one man insisted, examining his watch.
Dad nodded. He leaned toward me, beads of sweat collecting on his forehead. “Pick the thing you want to bring as your personal item, okay? I’m going to go pack a few things for Mom.” He rushed out of the room, leaving me with strangers.
The two guys by the desk glanced at each other, then followed Dad into the hall.
“What do you want your name to be?”
I jumped. I hadn’t heard the third guy, who’d been keeping watch by my window, sneak up on me. He smelled sweaty and I swallowed hard, trying not to throw up again.
“Well?” he prompted in his thick Jersey accent.
I balled my shaking hands into fists and blinked uncomprehendingly in his direction. Over his shoulder, I spotted Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland sitting on my bookshelf. “Alice,” I muttered. Because that was how I felt: like I was falling down a rabbit hole.
It was easier the second time, even though I was still terrified.
Mark turned off the TV and knelt in front of me. Something about his cologne calmed my pounding heart. I took a deep breath. The spicy scent was so much better than the stale-smelling lumpy couch I was lying on.
“I know it’s only been three weeks, but we need to move again,” he said in a soothing voice. “So you’re going to have to pick a new name.”
I gazed over his shoulder at Dad, who was leaning against the cramped motel room wall. His dyed brown hair was matted to his head and his brown eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, but he gave me a slight nod of encouragement.
I closed my eyes and imagined who I wanted to be. Because anyone had to be better than the broken girl Alice was.
“Beth,” I whispered. I’d just started reading Little Women and Beth’s character was described as living in a happy world of her own. That’s just what I needed.
“Hmm.” Mark rubbed his chin. “You picked Alice from the Wonderland book, right?”
I nodded, surprised he knew that. He hadn’t been in my room that day.
“Did you know Lewis Carroll based that character on a real girl named Alice Liddell?”
I sat up. “No.”
“What if we use Beth Liddell?” He stood. “It’ll be our little secret, the connection between your names.”
A hint of a smile formed on my lips. “Okay.”
And even though I soon found out Beth ended up dying in Little Women, that was how the tradition
