Speak

"The ninth graders are herded into the auditorium. We fall into clans: Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders... I am clanless. I wasted the last weeks of August watching bad cartoons. I didn't go to the mall, the lake, or the pool, or answer the phone. I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with."

From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she's an outcast. Her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know glare at her. If only she could explain... but she just can't find the words.