Prologue
The family section [of the newspaper] ran a regular feature about kids on their birthdays, and my mother had called in some info. The last sentence read: "As a hobby, Leo Borlock collects porcupine...
Chapter 1
Her back was to us, so I couldn't see her face. No one sat with her, but at the tables next to hers kids were cramming two to a seat. She didn't seem to notice. She seemed marooned in a sea of star...
Chapter 2
"She's not real," Hillari said. She was sneering. "She's an actress. It's a scam" (2.7)
Chapter 3
I observed her as if she were a bird in an aviary. One day I turned a corner and there she was, coming right at me, the long skirt softly rustling, looking straight at me, surrounding me with those...
Chapter 4
He played on no sports team, joined no organization, won no awards, earned no A's. He was elected to nothing, honored for nothing—and yet, though I did not realize this until years later, he was...
Chapter 5
She was not truly a cheerleader, but Stargirl dressed like one (5.15).
Chapter 6
She stood at my shoulder and looked down at me, smiling and singing, and I didn't know whether to look down at my hands or up at her face, so I did some of each. My face was burning… "Why him?"St...
Chapter 7
"She's homeschooled, you know. Her mother brought her to me. I guess she wanted a break from playing teacher. One day a week. Four, five—yes, five years now." Kevin pointed. "You created her!"Arc...
Chapter 8
She ran straight across the fifty-yard line and joined the other team's cheerleaders. We laughed as they stood there with their mouths open. She cheered in front of the players' bench and was shooe...
Chapter 9
Ironically, as we discovered and distinguished ourselves, a new collective came into being—a vitality, a presence, a spirit that had not been there before (9.6).
Chapter 13
Kevin jumped in. "So… you change your name whenever you get tired of it?""Whenever it doesn't fit anymore. I'm not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn, I outgrow it,...
Chapter 15
"I lay under my sheet of moonlight. Her voice came through the night, from the light, from the stars" (15.10)
Chapter 17
"Did you know there's a country with officially designated 'enchanted places'?" […] I think it would be neat if we had that here. You'd be walking or riding along, and there would be this stone m...
Chapter 18
"They're not talking to her."The words didn't stick. "What do you mean? Who's 'they'?"He cocked his head at the sea of tables and eaters."Them.""Who them?" I said too unhinged to laugh at my gramma...
Chapter 19
"It's in the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sleep but we're not really awake yet. For those few seconds we're something more primitive than what...
Chapter 20
In the beginning I still could not see. She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "noth...
Chapter 21
And I did have fun. Whether it came from the game or simply from being with her, I don't know. I do know I was surprised at how close I felt to Clarissa and Betty and Adam after watching them for o...
Chapter 22
Look at you. It's Saturday. I've been with you all day, and you've spent the whole day doing stuff for other people. Or taking pictures of other people" (22.69).
Chapter 23
When someone turned and nodded, I felt grateful. If someone spoke to me, especially if I had not spoken first, I wanted to cry. I had never realized how much I needed the attention of others to con...
Chapter 24
"I'm invisible," I said to Kevin at lunch. "Nobody hears me. Nobody sees me. I'm the friggin' invisible man."[…]"What did I do?" My voice was louder than I intended.He chewed. He stared. At last...
Chapter 25
"Stargirl, you just can't do things the way you do. If you weren't stuck in a homeschool all your life, you'd understand. You can't just wake up in the morning and say you don't care what the rest...
Chapter 26
She looked like a hundred other girls at Mica High. Stargirl had vanished into a sea of them, and I was thrilled… I grabbed her and squeezed her. I had never been so happy and so proud in my life...
Chapter 27
"Look, even the desert is celebrating." It seemed to be true. The normally dull cacti and scrub were splashed with April colors, as if a great painter had passed over the landscape with a brush, da...
Chapter 28
It was a jumble, it was a mishmash, and somehow she pulled it together, somehow she threaded every different thing through the voice of a solitary mockingbird singing in the desert. She called her...
Chapter 29
She stood apart from the teachers, alone in the black shimmering sea of asphalt. As we approached, she held up a sign, a huge cardboard sign bigger than a basketball backboard. She set the sign on...
Chapter 30
In bed that night, I became more and more uncomfortable as the moonlight crept up my sheet. I did something I had never done before. I pulled down the shade (30.25).
Chapter 31
"Beautiful""Unusual""Interesting""Different""Regal" These words will come later from the parents lining the walk. For now, there are only stares as she makes her way from the entrance to the ball (...
Chapter 32
"Star people are rare. You'll be lucky to meet another.""Star people?" I said. "You're losing me here."He chuckled. "That's okay. I lose myself. It's just my odd-ball way of accounting for someone...
Chapter 33
The skin on his arms had become dry and flaky, as if his body were preparing itself to rejoin the earth… He asked for the bag. I was shocked at what he took from it. "Barney!"The skull of the Pal...