It was September, and Lily knew that grade four was going to be different. Lily was one year older, one year smarter. She could be somebody at last!

With this in mind, Lily approached Marissa Bingham and her group of friends. They were dressed in short skirts and wore mascara, and they were very pretty, very lovely indeed. Lily wore dark, baggy sweaters and she didn't know how to put on makeup, but Marissa would teach her—Lily was in grade four!

"Look who's coming," said Marissa. "It's Lily."

Lily smiled. She had bright orange hair, square glasses, a face full of glowing pimples, a smile full of crooked teeth. She thought she looked beautiful, which was why—perhaps, just perhaps—Marissa called her name. Her group of friends were laughing, and soon she'd be laughing with them—

Lily's smile quickly turned into a frown when she realized that they were laughing at her. And Destinee called her "Loser Lily" and Kelly called her "Four-Eyes" and Tina called her "Crocodile Mouth" and Marissa said nothing, just smiled at her coldly, like she’d done something wrong simply by existing, and maybe they didn't want to be friends after all.

She stood there, the tears welling up in her eyes. I like to watch iCarly too! she wanted to shout at them. I can talk about makeup, and boys, and—

Lily knew at once that grade four was not going to be different at all.

Lily had grown into a beautiful woman. She'd outgrown her pimples, her square-framed glasses, her baggy sweaters. Her crooked smile intensified rather than obscured her confident radiance. Men asked for her number, whistled as she walked past. Women whispered and pointed to her with jealousy.

Lily was as intelligent as she was attractive. She was extremely qualified career-wise, but the career she did choose was a peculiar one.

On a bright, clear day in May, Lily brought a gun to Theodore Alexander Public School and waited for the children to come out during recess. Lavalee Bingham was a beautiful child, with brunette hair like her mother's. During recess, she blew bubbles in the field with her group of four friends, laughing as they raced to pop them together.

Lavalee Bingham never blew a bubble again.

In the video interview that was posted shortly after, Marissa was sobbing uncontrollably, her mascara running down her face. "I loved her so much," she kept on whispering. "Now I'll never watch her grow up." But the only thing Lily noticed as how much fatter Marissa had become, and Lily’s crooked teeth formed themselves into a smile.

Lily heard that Destinee had a son named Timothy, and that he liked to play soccer and read detective stories. The next day, she drove to Sir Gordon Winfield Public School. She never understood why some children deserved a childhood more than others, but she did understand one thing—

For these children, grade four would be different after all.