The story so far: Jenny's family is living in a motel until the new family house is ready. Jenny sta rted school and the kids think it'sweird that she lives in a motel.

Almost every conversation started the same way at Jenny's new school. Kids would ask herwhere she had moved from. Then they'd ask her where in Philadelphia she lived. She'd explain all abo utthe house being built and how they were staying temporarily at a motel on Roosevelt Boulevard. Thenthey'd say:“You live in a motel?”It was as if she hadn't said any of the other stuff. And she was getting tired of it. She was tiredof the whole thing, really. Tired of going to school every day and seeing no familiar faces. Tired o fworking so hard to remember her new locker combination. (She lay awake nights worrying about that,because if she forgot her combination, there was no one to ask for help. At her old school, all herfriends knew each other's combinations, so if you couldn't open your locker, one of your friends sur elycould.)Sixth-grade work was easy. Most of it she had done in fifth grade, anyway. She didn't knowwhether it was because they were reviewing first or whether somehow she had gotten way smarter overthe summer, but she was doing really well in school.Not so for Mark back at home. Jenny talked to him online every night. He told her about problems at school. Jenny teased him that maybesince she had gotten smarter over the summer, she had robbed him of some of his intelligence and he had gotten stupider. He wasn't in a joking mood most of thetime, though. Jenny figured he was upset about his parents' divorce. She wished she could help, but she was so far away. His parents even made him go to counselingand he was embarrassed about that.Soon it would be Columbus Day Weekend. Jenny had an extra day off from school on Monday. She begged and pleaded, and her parents were letting her goback to Long Island for the weekend. It was all arranged. Mark's dad was going to pick her up at the train station. She would stay with them.By the end of September, Jenny started talking to a few kids at school. Two weeks into the school ye ar, another new kid showed up. Since there weren'tenough lockers to go around, she was assigned to share with Jenny. Now Jenny worried less because sh e figured if she forgot the combination, at least Tanya wouldknow it.Plus, since Jenny had someone to share the “new kid” thing with, she didn't feel as weird. With Tany a, she felt brave about sitting with kids at lunch, and theytried a few groups until they found one they felt comfortable joining.Tanya had moved from the other side of Philadelphia. Jenny would have thought that moving from somew here close wouldn't have been as hard as her movehad been. But it turned out that Tanya hadn't been happy about moving either. She had to leave her f riends and the neighborhood where she had lived all her life.They were lucky to find each other, the girls thought. Finding someone to talk to about moving made it easier to deal with it. Before they knew it, they stoppedtalking about moving and started talking about things that were going on at school.When Jenny's family moved into their new house, Tanya came to watch and to help Jenny unpack. Theydiscovered they had a lot of the same stuff, clothes, books, and toys. They also liked a lot of the same music,although each of them had some music that the other had never heard. That was cool, too.Meanwhile, Jenny made plans for Columbus Day Weekend. Her Long Island friends were plannin g anothersurprise party for her, but Anna had spilled the beans, so Jenny already knew. That was okay. It jus t gave her more tolook forward to.Mark seemed to be doing better. He wasn't getting into so much trouble at school for missi ng assignmentsand stuff like that. He told Jenny that his mom and dad had worked out a way for him to see both of them the sameamount of time each week since his mom had rented an apartment in the same town, close to the house. He waslearning how to be sure what he needed was in the right parent's house when he needed it. This way, he didn't havethe problem of leaving books and homework at one house when he was at the other.Just before the holiday weekend, Jenny's class held an election for class president. Much to her total shock,someone nominated Jenny. She had to stand up and give a speech about why she'd be good at the job.She didn't think her speech was great, but, miraculously, she won by a landslide. Kids ca me up to her afterthe vote and told her why they voted for her.“You have such a cute New York accent,” most of them said.So maybe moving from one place to another wasn't the worst thing that could happen, Jenny thought.She hoped she'd make more friends before she stopped talking with an accent.THE END.WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS EIGHT PART SERIES!

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