Kaitlyn Starling had made every kid in Room 7 laugh at least once. Except one. The boy by the window never looked up. She wanted the whole class to love her jokes, and one holdout ruined the whole set. So she planned her best joke for him, and she waited. At lunch she leaned across his desk. "Why did the daisy blush?" She held up a bunch of white flowers she'd picked outside. "Because it saw the school's bee-hind!" He kept drawing. He did not smile. He did not even blink at the flowers. Kaitlyn's charming smile slipped for the first time all year. Axel Santiago watched from two desks over. Axel had purple spiky hair he dyed himself and a gold chain on his belt. He faked a burp once that made Kaitlyn laugh so hard milk nearly hit her nose, and he'd been chasing that laugh ever since. Now he crossed his arms. "Flowers won't work," Axel said. "He can't hear you." Kaitlyn frowned. "Everybody hears me. That's the problem." "Not him." Axel tapped his own ear. "He reads faces. Watch." He waved a hand. The boy looked up. Axel scrunched his face and stuck out his tongue. The boy grinned. Kaitlyn's mouth fell open. All year she'd been telling jokes to a kid who couldn't hear a single word. Jason Broson set his tray down beside them. Jason had moved from Germany a week ago. He wore a brown blazer and kept his hair in a neat side part, and he was Kaitlyn's favorite person to sit with because he made her laugh without trying. "You talk with your mouth," Jason said to Kaitlyn, flat. "He talks with his hands. You've been telling jokes to a wall." "That's not funny," Kaitlyn said. "It's a little funny." Kaitlyn looked at the boy. He was watching Axel's face, waiting for more. She set the daisies down on his desk. Then she pointed at herself, made a big silly grin, and crossed her eyes. The boy paused. He picked up his pencil, drew fast, and turned the paper around. A stick figure with crossed eyes and wild hair. Under it, a smiley face. Kaitlyn laughed, loud and real. He'd made a joke back. Her joke had landed, just not the way she'd practiced it. "See?" Axel said. "Face jokes." Kaitlyn's whole plan was broken. Her voice, her best weapon, meant nothing to this kid. If she wanted every classmate to adore her, she'd have to learn a way to be funny without saying a word. She picked up his drawing and held it like a prize. "Teach me," she said to Axel. "How he talks." Axel grinned. Jason raised one eyebrow. And Kaitlyn, for the first time, had no joke ready. She had homework.

The next morning, Kaitlyn walked into math class ready to practice face jokes. She never got the chance. Two boys were already shouting over the times-table chart. One was Mason Rivera, her best friend, a fourth grader who filmed videos in the school hallways and always kept Cheeto dust on his fingers. The other was Wei Zhang, the transfer student in a yellow hoodie who folded his arms like he wanted to win everything. "Kaitlyn likes ME," Mason said. "She laughs at my videos. That's proof, honestly." "She looked at me first," Wei snapped. "That means more." Kaitlyn stopped in the doorway. Both boys pointed at her. The whole room turned to stare. She felt her charming smile freeze on her face. This was not adoring. This was a mess, and it was about her. "I never said either of you," Kaitlyn started. But her voice got buried under theirs. Mason slammed his backpack on a desk. A blue bunny keychain swung from the zipper. "Say it's me. Just say it." "Say it's me," Wei said louder. The student teacher rushed in. Miss Suksamran wore a brown corduroy dress and a soft, cheerful smile, but her eyes went wide and tight the second she heard the yelling. She hated arguments. She clapped once, sharp. "Stop. Stop right now." Her voice shook a little. "We do not fight in my class." The boys kept going. Wei called Mason a fake. Mason called Wei a copycat. Kaitlyn's stomach twisted. Every kid was watching her, and none of them were smiling. So Kaitlyn did the only thing she knew. She jumped onto her chair. "HEY!" she shouted. Both boys shut up. She pointed at herself, then made the silliest face she had. She crossed her eyes, puffed her cheeks, and pretended to fall over the desk like a dropped puppet. A laugh cracked from the back row. Then two more. Miss Suksamran covered her mouth. Even Wei snorted before he could stop himself. "You want the truth?" Kaitlyn said, still balanced on the chair. "Neither of you. I don't have a crush on anybody in this class." She looked straight at both boys. "But you're both being goofy, and goofy is my favorite thing. So sit down before I do a worse face." The class roared. Mason grinned despite himself. Wei uncrossed his arms. "Off the chair, please," Miss Suksamran said, but she was laughing too. Kaitlyn hopped down. She had done it. She'd turned a fight into a laugh, and the whole room loved her for it. Her smile came back real this time. Then she saw Mason's face. He wasn't laughing anymore. He looked hurt, quiet, like she'd used his best friend feelings for a joke. He grabbed his backpack and moved two seats away without a word. Kaitlyn had won the class. But she had just told her best friend, in front of everyone, that he was only funny to her. And now he wouldn't look at her either.

Three years had passed since the fight in math class. Kaitlyn Starling was in fifth grade now, and the harvest party filled the cafeteria hall with warm lights and paper leaves. Music teacher Miss Maple ran the music from a booth, her long syrup-blonde hair swinging as she cued the next song. Kaitlyn spun on the floor, laughing, still the girl who made every room look at her. Her best friend Anaya Sharma danced beside her. Anaya was quiet and serious, a soccer player who kept her beanie on even indoors. She never fought for attention. That was why Kaitlyn liked her. "Come on," Kaitlyn said, tugging her sleeve. "There's a game by the snacks. We have to win it." They pushed toward a booth run by a tall, kind mom from Iceland, Freyja, who handed out cider with a bright smile. Beside it hung four balloons—pink, purple, gold, and magenta—floating in a row. "Pop the gold one and you win the whole tray," Freyja said, pointing at a plate of caramel apples. Kaitlyn grinned. This was her moment. A crowd of kids gathered as she picked up a small dart. "Watch the master," she announced. Anaya laughed. Kaitlyn made a silly face, wiggled her hips, and threw. The dart missed the gold balloon and popped the pink one instead. The kids groaned, then cheered anyway, because Kaitlyn bowed like she'd meant to do it. That was when Casey Burns stepped up. Casey was a fifth grader with a sharp eye and a bob of dark blonde hair. She had spent years watching for the exact moment to take Kaitlyn's spotlight. She said little and noticed everything. "Move," Casey said. Just that. Casey took a single dart. She didn't dance or joke. She aimed, threw, and popped the gold balloon dead center. The crowd exploded. Freyja handed her the whole tray of caramel apples. Kaitlyn's smile froze. The kids swarmed Casey now, not her. Anaya squeezed her arm, but Kaitlyn barely felt it. She waited for the crowd to turn back to her. It didn't. Casey held out one caramel apple. "Here," she said flatly. "You made them laugh. I made them look." She let Kaitlyn catch her watching. "There's a difference." Kaitlyn took the apple. She wanted to fire back a joke, but nothing came. For the first time, a laugh hadn't been enough. Casey walked off with the crowd trailing her. "You okay?" Anaya asked. Kaitlyn looked at the popped pink balloon on the floor. "They still like me," she said. But she wasn't sure anymore. Making kids laugh had always won the room. Tonight someone had beaten her by making them stare instead. If she wanted everyone to adore her, jokes alone wouldn't do it now. She'd have to find something Casey couldn't take.

The caramel apple still sat untouched in Kaitlyn's backpack the next morning. Casey had beaten her by making the crowd stare. But one classmate never stared, never laughed, never even looked up. The boy by the window sat where he always sat, drawing in the margin of his worksheet. Kaitlyn knew he was deaf. Axel had told her weeks ago. Her jokes had never reached him. She wanted his grin more than the whole crowd's now, because she couldn't earn it with her voice. So she called her cousin. Rosalie Morrison was older and knew sign language. She showed up at Kaitlyn's kitchen, sat at the little rocking chair by the potted-plant table, and listened. "You keep trying to be loud," Rosalie said. "He can't hear loud. Draw him something. Make it dumb." She pushed a folded sheet of paper across the table. "A comic. No words he has to hear." Kaitlyn practiced all weekend. She drew stick figures tripping over their own feet. She drew a cat wearing pants. Anaya came over and flipped through the pages. "That one's actually funny," Anaya said, pointing at a hamster riding a trumpet. Kaitlyn folded her best comic small and tucked it into her pocket. Monday, she slid a plate onto the boy's desk first. A slice of strawberry cheesecake with chocolate dripping down the side. She'd drawn a silly note beside it, a smiling blob saying nothing at all. The boy looked at the cake. He looked at Kaitlyn. He pushed it back without a smile. Her chest went tight. Casey passed in the hall and caught her watching the failure. Casey said nothing. She didn't have to. At recess Kaitlyn didn't give up. She grabbed the comic from her pocket and set it on the boy's desk, flat, so he could see every panel. Then she sat down across from him. She made the same face as her stick figure. She crossed her eyes. She tripped over an invisible rock and caught herself on the desk. The boy's hand stopped moving. He looked at panel one. Panel two. The hamster on the trumpet. His shoulders shook. Then he grinned. Wide, real, all teeth. He grabbed his own pencil and drew a stick figure falling off a cliff, arms flailing, and pushed it back to her. Kaitlyn laughed out loud. She'd done it. The one classmate who never laughed had grinned at her drawing, not her voice. She'd found something Casey couldn't take with a single throw. But the boy signed something with his hands. Fast. Kaitlyn didn't understand one bit of it. He signed again, waiting, his grin fading when she just stared. He wanted to talk back, and she had no way to answer him. Making him laugh once wasn't enough. Now he expected a friend who could speak his language, and Kaitlyn couldn't say a single word.

The boy's hands had moved so fast Monday, and Kaitlyn had understood none of it. So she called Rosalie again. Her cousin came over and taught her signs at the kitchen table, over and over, until Kaitlyn's fingers ached. "Slow down," Rosalie said. "Hands, not mouth." Kaitlyn practiced every night. Hello. Friend. Funny. By the time the Halloween party came, she could sign a whole joke. She packed a werewolf-shaped cheesecake in her backpack and felt ready to show the boy she'd learned his language. The party filled the cafeteria with orange streamers and too much noise. Anaya danced beside Kaitlyn, still in her soccer socks under a bedsheet ghost. "You keep looking at the door," Anaya said. She stated it flat. "You're waiting for someone." Kaitlyn nodded and kept scanning the crowd. Then she saw him. Kevin Williams, the deaf fifth grader she'd been signing with for weeks, stood near the snack table in a bright yellow Pikachu onesie. But he wasn't alone. Bridget Hartley stood too close to him, a red cowboy hat tipped over her glasses. Bridget signed something at Kevin, slow and careful. Kaitlyn's stomach dropped. Someone else knew his language too. Kaitlyn pushed forward. She set the werewolf cheesecake on the table and tapped Kevin's shoulder. When he turned, she signed the joke Rosalie had drilled into her. Why did the skeleton stay home? She fumbled the last sign and did it again. No guts. Her hands shook. Kevin watched. He read every sign. Then he grinned, wide and real, and laughed out loud, a rough bark of sound. He signed back, quick but clear enough now. Good joke. Kaitlyn read it. She'd understood him. She laughed too, and this time she wasn't guessing. Bridget's face went tight. "I've been signing to him since September," she said, short and flat. "Fourteen weeks." She looked at Kaitlyn's hands, then at Kevin's grin, and said nothing else. Sophie Jazzson came up beside them in a fuzzy lamb hood. She watched Kevin laugh at Kaitlyn's joke. "He didn't laugh like that for hers," Sophie said, nodding at Bridget. "Just saying what I saw." Bridget turned and walked into the crowd. Kaitlyn should have felt only joy. She'd learned his language. She'd made him laugh in it. But Bridget's words stuck. Fourteen weeks. Bridget wanted Kevin, and Kaitlyn had just beaten her at the one thing Bridget had practiced longest. Kevin cut a slice of the werewolf cheesecake and held it out to Kaitlyn, still smiling, not knowing. Kaitlyn took the plate. She'd won Kevin's laugh and his language. But she'd made an enemy who kept charts and counted weeks, and that enemy had watched the whole thing happen.