Meet the characters in this novel:

My name is Eric Calhoune and though I have spent hours in the weight room ., must folks call me Moby. My English teacher, Ms. Lemry, who is also my coach, sometimes calls me Eric the Well Read, because I'm pretty smart. She also calls me Double-E, for Eric Enigma. "I can't figure exactly how you're put together inside," she says.

Sarah Byrnes is up there just staring into space. She doesn't talk or respond to anything. When I looked at her close, when I saw her without her razor-sharp words, and her fire-all the stuff she cuts up with-she looked gone. And I thought, I don't blame you. Id' go away, too because the world doesn't provide any place safe for her. Every day when she gets up, she knows she has to bring her scarred-up face to school, knowing what everyone thinks ad won't say. There's no place to hide and it never lets up. I'd call that a bad place to live.

The rules that God made to govern the world are strict, but they're the same for everyone. They don't change because some female doesn't have the brains to stay out of situations that lead to [problems]. They don't change because you got born into a family with no dad, or because your father is a misguided, permissive preacher who lets you drive around in a car that screams blasphemy. They don't change if you're scarred all over your face and hands like your friend.

Once I thought being a fat kid was the worst thing that could possibly be, but if I hadn't been fat, I would never have know Sarah Byrnes-I mean Sarah-and that would have been a true tragedy in my life.

Find out why in Chris Crutcher's , Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes .