On the other hand, I am of the belief that "you are what you wear." (I'd rather think that than "you are what you eat." If that were true I'd be a Snickers bar or something.) Anyway, I love to dress in a way that some people here in Stoneybrook might call outrageous. For example, here's what I was thinking of wearing the next day: Since I had the big test, I thought I'd start with my lucky earrings - the ones that look like Princess Di's. They're huge (pretend) emeralds, surrounded by thousands of tiny (phony) diamonds. Then I thought I'd work downward from there, wearing my new green-and-blue-tie-dyed T-shirt dress (the casualness of the dress would be an interesting contrast to those fancy earrings) over green leggings.

The only thing I hadn't figured out was the shoes - should I go with my old ballet flats, or the black leather high-tops I'd just gotten? I was having a hard time deciding.

But I wasn't about to ask Janine for her advice. If she had any idea of what I'd been thinking about - oh, my lord, I don't even want to imagine what she might say.

So I distracted her by showing off my mathematical brilliance. "Check out Problem Five, Janine," I said again. It was a word problem, about Jack and Jill renting a rowboat and how much it would cost them if they rowed for two and a half hours. (Why I should care, I don't know - you wouldn't catch me out in some leaky old rowboat for even five minutes.) I did some quick calculations and a bit of plain old guessing. "The answer would be ... let's see . . . four dollars and twenty-five cents, right?" Janine looked at the problem for about two seconds, then beamed at me. "You really do understand, don't you, Claudia? I can see that you're not going to have any problems with this test." "Right," I said. "No problems at all." I only wish I could have been as sure about it as she was.

Chapter 2.

When we'd finished going over all the problems, Janine gave me a few quick tips on test-taking in general. I have to admit that by then I was getting kind of tired of all this. But I nodded in all the right places, and soon Janine finished her little speech, wished me good luck on the test, and left my room.