Mom and Dad came back out with us.
“How’s King of the Bounce?” Dad asked. He patted Baxter’s side and scratched between his shoulders.
“Not very bouncy,” I said. “But he’s happy about the slumber party.”
Me, Baxter, TJ, and Mom climbed onto the big smooshy pile of sleeping bags and Baxter’s bed. Dad turned on a flashlight, turned off the overhead light, and walked across the dark garage to join us. I told ghost stories (which TJ loves—the grosser and goopier the better) holding the flashlight under my chin to make my face glow green, which makes them extra scary.
Finally, it got so late that TJ lay down to listen. After a while, his eyes started to close.
“Time for bed.” Mom kissed the top of my head and the top of TJ’s head and went into the house. I lay down in my sleeping bag, snuggling up next to Baxter.
Dad settled down in a camp chair. He turned the flashlight off and played his guitar very, very quietly, because he always stays up late, and it was only about nine. But he doesn’t mind sitting in the dark and playing his guitar, and sometimes he even does that on purpose.
I hugged Baxter extra close so that Professor Reese’s half wouldn’t be worried either, snuggling up to his fuzzy back and waiting to get sleepy.
But TJ kept rustling around in his sleeping bag. “Cut it out! Quit panting on me!” (He was on the dog-breath side of Baxter, not the fuzzy side.)
So Dad turned the garage light on, and TJ moved his sleeping bag over to the other side of me, so then I was in the middle. Dad turned the light back off and went back to playing his guitar.
Dad played so quietly that sometimes I could barely hear the music at all as I drifted in and out—first I’d notice it, then I wouldn’t, then I would again. And resting my head against Baxter’s scruffy back, it seemed like he was humming in his sleep, ever so faintly. I put my ear down by his shoulder blades, and sure enough, there was a faint hum coming from his microchip, which was weird.
I thought, Maybe since the microchip is the kind with cheap parts that doesn’t work right, it hums even though it’s not supposed to.
But it didn’t matter anyway because it wasn’t an annoying hum—it was more like he was just humming along with the music. It was so nice and peaceful that as I fell asleep, I was almost positive everything would be fine in the morning and that Professor Reese would be home.
19Jordie, Jordie . . . Jordie!
But when Baxter and I went over to Professor Reese’s the next morning to get his breakfast, the newspaper was sitting on the porch, which meant: no crossword puzzle, no yoga, no footless tights—
No Professor Reese.
Only we’d all slept so badly on our camping pads—with TJ saying, “Scoot over!” a million times—that we kept waking up. When we did finally stay asleep, we overslept.
So me and TJ didn’t have time to do anything about the no Professor Reese. TJ only had time to run down to the lab and give Spike an orange slice while I fed Baxter his breakfast and did his ear ointment. Then we hurried to school. All I could do was hope that she would come home during the day and have some ordinary-only-for–Professor Reese reason why she’d been gone all night.
My lousy day got worse because I remembered that it was Friday, and Megan was home with her grandparents. Plus, the bell was already ringing when I got there, so I had to run straight to class. I barely had time to tell Jasmine and Aisha about even half of the Baxter Slumber Party before Mrs. A. started blabbing—
“Jordie.”
—like how we’d all piled onto the big pile of sleeping bags—
“Jordie . . .”
—and Baxter had climbed into the middle so we could all give him pets and pats—
“JORDIE.”
—with Mrs. A. so impatient that I couldn’t even finish.
And the lousiest thing of all was that it was my last Study Buddy session before the Good-bye–Hello Ceremony next week.
Tyler and I walked up one hallway and down the other. “You did good yesterday—your bounce-pass keep-away game was really fun,” I said. “You did even better than me,” I added, because it was true.
“What?”
“Pretty soon you could show someone how to be a good Study Buddy.”
“Wait.” He stopped walking and looked at me. “You think you’ve been helping me?”
“Well, maybe just a little—”
“Don’t you get it, Jordie? Why do you think Mrs. A. picked us to do this?”
I didn’t know if I should say it out loud: that since he was the worst kid in the whole class, she needed me to balance him out. But then I remembered her “Jordie-Jordie-JORDIE.”
Tyler shook his head. “She thinks we’re both losers.” He started walking again.
I felt my face get hot, and it just got hotter and hotter as I hurried after him to Mrs. Wilson’s classroom.
When we opened the door, Katie and Maya ran up and hugged Tyler, probably just because of bounce-pass keep-away—but still, they hugged him first.
Tyler froze and turned bright red, and Mrs. Wilson grinned.
I was sure that Katie and Maya were going to hug me next, only right then Mrs. Wilson motioned us over to an empty table. I thought, They just didn’t have time to hug me because of Mrs. Wilson.
“Today we’re working on one of our Keys for the Classroom: helping others. Each group needs to create a poem or drawing about being helpful.”
Katie and Maya said they wanted to do a drawing of someone who helped them. Mrs. Wilson got a big piece of construction paper. “Who do you want to draw?”
Katie cupped her not-as-sticky-as-they-used-to-be hands around Maya’s ear, and whispered something, and
