Pien, Sue Ann: Scholastic Audio presents Good Different by Meg Eden Kuyatt and read by Sue Ann Pien.

Half an hour before school lets out.

Sometimes I feel like I'm going to burst open, the dragon inside me hatching from its egg.

The incident. Study hall is supposed to be quiet, a break from all the noise and talking to work on homework or draw or just sit and think. But the other kids are loud throwing heavy words around the room like anvils. Even if I don't want to listen to their conversations my ears attach to every word like magnets, and the heavy words settle into my forehead until they shape into a massive headache. I try to hide in drawing. I try to keep my mouth shut and be the good kid people think I am. But the busy halls and hot crowded room and the memory of the rude neighbors and the warm itchy uniform and the squeaking dry erase markers poke at me like thumb tack all the time, and I'm sick of it.

I tell myself to push it all inside until I can get home. Then Addie leans over behind me and starts braiding my hair. Why? I suddenly feel her fingers in my hair, like electric spiders crawling and pinching and taking over my whole head. She doesn't even ask first or anything. I can't think. I can't gather words. My body takes over. I scream and turn and my arm moves without me thinking, hitting her like she's a fly buzzing around my head, but my hit is too hard. Blood runs out Addie's nose, and the whole room goes still.

Blood drips from Addie onto the tile floor. Blood is supposed to be in your body, not outside it. I've never had a bloody nose, but the way Addie bites her lip, scrunches her eyes I can tell I did a terrible thing. The worst thing, the thing all my rules try to protect me from doing, making someone hurt.

Worst nightmare. Everyone stops talking. The chess boys stop playing chess. Mr. S. stops grading papers. Everyone's eyes are on me. I could feel them like slime. The confusion, disgust and worst of all the fear I might do it again.

Waiting, sitting downstairs in the school office waiting for Mom to come. I'm some exotic zoo animal. Mrs. Tucker has propped open the doors so everyone sees me on their way to PE funneling into the gym in their blue shorts. Addie isn't there, obviously. Everyone's eyes stick on me like those sticky toy balls you get in dentist office vending machines. Ezra glares at me like he's trying to shoot laser beams across the hall through me. I imagine cage bars in the doorway made to protect zoo guests from me, but also to protect me from zoo guests.

Principal Murkart's office used to be a closet. My sixth grade classroom was the old principal's office, but as the school gets bigger, rooms are running out. I've never had to be here before. I'm not the kind of kid who breaks the rules. There's just enough space for him to get behind his desk and for Mom to squeeze into the corner across from him. I sit by the door so I can feel less like I'm being buried alive. Principal Murkart tries to put on his smiling Santa face, stroking his pepper gray beard, but my chest still feels like horses are racing inside me, and Mom doesn't even wear her polite smile.

Principal Murkart says things like "In accordance with a code of conduct in the school handbook. She'll be suspended for three days, zero tolerance, warning. When she gets back, we'll need to see her Pebble Creek best, decide if we can invite her back next year."

But I can't focus, my head, the whole office is spinning. Principal Murkart turns to me. "We'd hate to have to ask you to leave Sarah. We love having you at Pebble Creek, but we can't have something like this ever happen again." I tell him my name is Selah.

Pebble Creek Academy used to be small enough that everyone knew each other's names, but now it feels different. Tight, like a shirt that shrunk in the wash and makes your arms all itchy. "There won't be a next time," Mom says "There won't be any more problems."

Not knowing, Mom's quiet as we walk out of Pebble Creek to the car. She's quiet as we drive out of the parking lot. She only speaks when we pull up to the house. It's just so unlike you, Selah. I look down at my hands and hope she's right because some days I have no idea what is or isn't me.