"Thanks," I whispered. "My name's Olive-with one 'O' too, I guess." She laughed. We started walking and during our conversation discovered we lived in the same development. I lived at 5201 67th Place and she lived at 5201 67th Street. We lived only a block apart in almost identical tan and brown homes on almost identical streets and had the same house number!

I had seen her in some of my classes but really hadn't gotten into many conversations with anyone but the guidance counselor who had taken me to my homeroom and left me with nothing but a schedule. But I was used to it. I had moved three times in the last five years.

The guidance counselor was a young woman who said it was her first year at her new job. Duh, like I couldn't tell. "Hey, you're doing fine," I said, thinking to myself, what could be worse on a first day than to have a counselor take you to your first class who didn't know any more than you did. She stopped to ask students for directions while I pretended to be invisible.

Being invisible is something that I do very well, except for one thing. I'm not invisible and being heavier than others my age makes me stand out. I better tell you right now that I guess I 'm not pretty. You see, if you're overweight you can't be pretty. Now you can have a pretty face, but you're not really pretty. People say to me, "Oh, you have such a pretty face; too bad you don't lose some weight". You see, unless you have a pretty body to match your face, you're not pretty. To be pretty, you have to be thin.

So here we are. I'm plump Olive with only a pretty face and I am in my new school as a 7 th grader. I had spent the day trying to figure out the teachers, find my way to my next class, write down my homework assignments and generally pray that I could make it through the day without any incident. As you know by now, that didn't happen.

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