Chapter 3

The "Amish Girl" label stuck. Molly' s attempts to fit in at school became a train wreck. Without access to modern culture, her conversations were stilted and awkward, filled with out-of-touch religious platitudes. The more she tried to preach to her classmates about the evils of popular music, the more they mocked her.

The bullying escalated from whispers to open taunts in the hallways. Someone taped a picture of a horse-drawn buggy to her locker.

Instead of realizing the problem was the ridiculous hundred-day ban, Debra saw it as a spiritual attack. She stormed into the principal' s office, my grandmother' s old Bible clutched in her hand.

"My daughter is being persecuted for her Christian faith!" she yelled, her voice echoing down the main hall. "This is a public school, not a den of godless heathens! You are fostering an environment of anti-religious bigotry!"

The principal, a tired man named Mr. Henderson, tried to explain that it was a social issue, not a religious one. But Debra wouldn' t listen. Her outburst made things a thousand times worse. The story spread through the school like wildfire. Molly went from being a weird outcast to a school-wide joke.

She came home that day in tears, throwing her backpack on the floor.

"It' s all your fault!" she shrieked at me. I was sitting at my desk, highlighting a chapter on trigonometry.

I didn' t even look up. "How is it my fault?"

"You could have helped me! You could have told me what was going on, what to say! But you just sit there with your stupid books, acting like you' re better than everyone!" She was desperate, her pious act crumbling. "I have a history paper due, and the teacher said we have to use online sources. Mama won' t let me use the computer. You have to help me, Gabby. Please."

I remembered the last essay I helped her with. I remembered her blaming me, her rage.

"No," I said calmly. "I have my own work to do. You' ll have to figure it out."

"But how?" she wailed.

"Go to the library," I said, turning a page. "That' s what it' s for."

She stared at me, her face a mixture of disbelief and fury. She was so used to me caving, so used to my empathy being a weakness she could exploit. Seeing the cold, unyielding wall I had built around myself left her utterly lost. She was on her own, and she had no idea what to do.