"William," Mrs. Kolas snapped and the huge blond boy startled.
"Y-yes ma'am. It's just Wil, ma'am." he stammered, sitting up straighter in the uncomfortable wooden seat.
"Will is short for William," she said, squinting through her spectacles. It was a challenge, not a question. He mumbled something incoherent and a couple of students close to him snickered. "Well?" Mrs. Kolas insisted.
"It's short for Wilbur, ma'am." He answered louder and his tanned skin darkened as blood rushed to his cheeks. Mrs. Kolas stared at him for a moment, then stepped around her desk, rifling through papers until she found what she was looking for.
"Wilbur Gunn?" she asked skeptically as if expecting a poorly executed punchline.
"Yes ma'am," he replied and sunk back down.
Sunny grinned at Enid, but couldn't help feeling bad for the new kid. Mrs. Kolas wasn't a bad teacher or a cruel lady, but she was old and to her the motives of all children were suspect.
"Who names their kid Wilbur?" Rob Roberts asked carelessly.
Enid shot back. "Who gives their kid the same name twice?"
Rob sneered at her, ready to escalate the argument, but Mrs. Kolas intervened, "Both of you can zip it if you don't want to visit Principal Olsen." She scowled around the room, then returned to the whiteboard, marking down page numbers for their reading assignments.
Two hours later, Sunny sat in the cafeteria with Enid and Roslyn, a sixth-grader both of them liked very much, all three noticing Wil's feeble efforts to hide the fact that he kept looking at their table from his place in the lunch line.
"I think he likes you," Sunny said between bites of her bologna on wheat.
"Don't even," Enid warned while Roslyn bit her lips together.
"What's wrong? He seems nice. You can't have a problem with his looks." Sunny was only half teasing. Neither of them had ever had a boyfriend and none of the other boys in class were taller than Enid. If he really liked her, it seemed like a good fit.
"I'm not allowed to date until I'm sixteen, you know that!" Enid said, scandalized.
"Doesn't mean you can't have a guy friend, does it?" Sunny mumbled through another bite.
"If you ask my mom that's exactly what it means!"
"He's coming over," Roslyn piped up, just loud enough for the other two girls to hear, and Enid shot Sunny a dirty look.
"Um..." he began as he hesitantly closed the last few feet.
"Hi Wil," Sunny said, sliding over so he could sit down, but he shook his head and looked at Enid.
"I wanted to say thanks. Most people just laugh," he said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously with one hand.
"Right, okay," Enid answered, just as nervous. Sunny wanted to giggle but could never do that to a friend.
"Well..." Wil started to move away with a wave, but Sunny reached out and touched his arm.
"Wil, why don't you join us?" she suggested. Roslyn was aghast and Enid looked like she wanted to crawl under the table. Inviting a boy to sit next to them would invite rumors they wouldn't live down until college, but Sunny had been through worse and she wanted him to feel welcome.
"I really should go get..." he began.
"Please?" Sunny gazed up at him with an expression so pure and sincere that it froze him to the spot. Enid sighed, knowing Wil was trapped, thinking how good it was that Sunny had no idea how much power that look had over people. He scanned the lunchroom briefly, then wedged awkwardly onto the bench, planting himself as far away from Sunny as he could without being obvious, and directly across from Enid. Even sitting, all of them would have to tilt their heads to meet his eyes, not that anyone other than Sunny had the slightest intention of making eye contact.
"So, Wilbur? There has to be a story behind that," Sunny began and Enid rolled her eyes dramatically.
"Not really," Wil said, "It's my dad's name."
"So you're junior?" Roslyn asked, emboldened by Sunny's audacity.
"My dad was junior, I'm the third."
Roslyn seemed impressed, "Three Wilburs, wow."
"I know it's stupid," Wil said, his head drooping again.
"That's not what I meant!" Roslyn blurted out, trying to salvage the conversation, but Enid stepped in and saved her.
"Try growing up with skin like this and the last name, 'Hougaard'." she quipped, and that brought out the first grin, though small, that Sunny had ever seen on his face.
"Yeah," Roslyn said with more enthusiasm than the situation called for, pointing at Sunny, "and she's Sunshine Sparkle."
The smile left his face instantly and he stared back at Roslyn in confusion before disappointment shadowed his features again. "Sorry, I really should go."
"It's not a joke," Sunny said, tugging on his sleeve to prevent his escape, "It's true. My mom's a big fan of My Little Pony, and she thought it sounded pretty."
Wil seemed unsure, but he sat back down, "Sparkle is really your name?"
"Middle name." Enid answered for her, "Sunshine Sparkle Summers. She beats everyone in the weird names department."
Sunny smiled at her and shrugged, "I don't care if people think it's silly, I like it." Her name was the first gift her mom had ever given her.
"I still think it would have worked better if you were blonde," Enid suggested, finally relaxed enough to take another bite from her pudding cup.
"Or less pale," Roslyn added.
"I'm fine the way I am, thanks." was all Sunny would say, then opened a ziplock with four Oreos, took one out, and slid the bag into the center of the table. "Desert's on me."
Enid took one without thinking and Roslyn stared at them but made no move to grab a cookie for herself.
"Go on, Wil," Sunny urged, "Cooties aren't a real thing."
He relaxed visibly and offered up another smile before taking one of Sunny's Oreos and saying, "Thank you."
The four remained together and chatted through lunch. Sunny discovered Wil had been moving between schools for years following his father's work in quantum biology, and his mother's in theoretical mathematics.
"How did you end up here?" Enid boggled. There's a lot of corn, but that's about it."
"My dad consults for a company called Indracorp and they have an office out here. It's just a little building in a field out in Carford." Carford was a collection of farms to the west, even smaller than Delphi.
"What's he working on?" asked Roslyn.
"He won't tell me and mom acts like she doesn't know, but I think she's helping." He shrugged, "I'm not that interested, to be honest. They talk shop at home, but most of it just sounds like they're making up words. Electro something tangles in cohomilies of bing boom whatever."
"Maybe they're developing teleportation." Sunny offered, stuffing everyone's trash into her brown lunch bag.
"What?" Roslyn and Enid said together.
"Well," Sunny replied, almost as an aside, "you said it's a big secret, and your dad is a quantum biologist. Science studies quantum theory because particles do things that normal physics can't explain, like one might be in two places at once, or it'll disappear from one place and reappear in another. Maybe your dad is trying to prove it can work on people and your mom is figuring out how to do it?"
Wil stared at Sunny for a couple seconds then looked to Enid for help, but she just shrugged. "She's the school braniac. If you want to figure out what she's talking about you're on your own."
"Don't be stupid," Sunny scolded, "My grades aren't any better than yours, I just read a lot. It's interesting."
"Yeah we have the same grades, but I have to work for my A's because I don't want to look like your stupid sidekick, and it doesn't leave me with much time to read about quantical doof-thingies." Enid shot back.
"Well I don't think they're working on teleporters," Wil interrupted the brewing argument, "but if I wanted to guess I'd say they're trying to make batteries."
Roslyn scrunched up her nose, "Batteries already exist."
He shrugged, "I think they're trying to make something better. It's just a guess."
"Sounds like a weird thing to be dragged all over the country for." Enid slid her long legs out from under the table and stood up. "Three minutes before Mrs. K blows a gasket."
They walked back together, Roslyn peeling off toward Mr. Well's 6th-grade class with a wave, and took their seats. They didn't speak again until the bell rang and Wil left quietly while Sunny and Enid made plans for the glorious Saturday ahead.