Eric stopped in his tracks. “Yes, Ms. Lindgren?”
“I did a quick look through the homework stack and didn’t see any with your name on it.”
His shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. I did do it. I just forgot it in my locker.”
She held up a finger, indicating he shouldn’t move. Then, once the other students had all left, she said, “I know you’re a good student, Eric. You’ve been doing great so far this year. But the past couple weeks you’ve just fallen apart. Is something going on? Is everything all right at home?”
Not even close. “Everything’s fine at home.”
“Then why the tardies? Why the missing homework?”
“I did do my homework. It’s in my locker. I swear!”
She was silent for a moment. “All right. You go get it and bring it back to me now. If you do that, I’ll mark you as turning it in on time.”
“But…”
“But what? You did do it, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I did it.”
“If you’re worried about being late to your next class, I’ll write you a pass.”
He took a breath then nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
He exited the classroom and looked around. As he’d feared, neither Fiona nor Keira was around. But Maggie was.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
“I left my homework in my locker. Ms. Lindgren wants me to go get it.”
“You want me to come with you?”
Eric shook his head. “She said she’d write me a pass if I’m late, but I don’t think she’d write one for you, too. I’ll just meet you in Spanish.”
She gave him a smile. “At least you’ll get credit for your homework this time.”
He walked toward his locker, his head down, his mind on his problems. There had to be a cause for all this, something he must have done. But he had no idea what it could have been. Distracted by trying to figure out what it could possibly be, he turned the corner into the hallway where his locker was located.
“Hey!”
With a stutter step, he came to an abrupt halt. Standing less than a foot in front of him was Peter Garr.
“Sorry,” Eric said, trying to move around the other boy.
But Peter stepped in front of him. For a split second, Eric wondered if the bigger boy was going to start sniffing the air again.
“You need to watch where you’re going,” Peter said. Unlike at the library two days ago and last night in Maggie’s front yard, he was talking like he normally did.
“You’re right,” Eric replied. “I should have been paying attention. I’m sorry.”
As Peter grunted, Eric tensed, preparing himself to be pushed to the ground. But the bully surprised him. “Next time, I won’t be as nice.”
He knocked shoulders with Eric as he walked off, but that was as bad as it got.
The sense of relief Eric felt was intense.
He had a smile on his face as he walked the rest of the way to his locker, but as soon as he saw what was waiting for him, it disappeared.
If his luck was turning, it was only going from bad to worse.
8
Eric’s locker was a mess.
In addition to the gum from the day before that had hardened on his lock, someone had shaken several cans of orange soda and opened them directly into the vents of his locker. A sticky, brownish-orangey film covered the door, while more of the soda had traveled through the inside then seeped out the bottom and drained onto the locker below his. It must have happened before school, he thought. Otherwise it would have been wetter than it was.
Knowing he had little choice, he worked his combination and slowly opened the door. A sickly sweet smell rolled over him like a cloud of his grandmother’s perfume, forcing him to clamp his hands over his face until it passed. When he was finally able to breathe again, he took a look at the damage.
Soda was everywhere — on the walls, on his books, even on the hook at the very top. And at the bottom, a pool of orange soda oozed around the edges of his math book.
“Just…great,” he said.
He pulled at his homework until it came free of the book. He wasn’t surprised to see orange soda had found it, too. He considered just throwing it in the trash, but right at that moment the warning bell rang. There was no way he was going to make it to Spanish in time so he was going to need that note Ms. Lindgren had promised him. And the only way to get that was to bring her his homework.
Reluctantly, he made his way back to her classroom and set the wet sticky paper on her desk.
She looked at it, then at him. “What’s this?”
“My homework. Someone shot soda into my…” He stopped and shook his head. “Never mind.” He was sure she was going to see it as just another excuse and refuse to give him a hall pass. But though she didn’t look happy, she was true to her word and wrote him the note.
When he walked into Spanish, Mrs. Munoz was handing something out.
“Hola, Eric,” she said. “Class started three minutes ago.” He gave her the hall pass. She nodded after looking at it. “Hurry and sit. Pop quiz.”
If he could have melted into the floor right then, he would have. The last thing he wanted to do was take a pop quiz. He walked over to his desk and slumped into his chair.
“Pass them back, please,” Mrs. Munoz said as she gave the students sitting up front enough sheets of paper for their row.
When the girl in front of Eric turned to give him the remaining stack, it wasn’t Angie Chang, the person who usually sat in front of him. It was Fiona.
“Take one and pass it back,” she told him and then faced forward again.
After he’d passed them on, he leaned toward her. “What are you doing here?”
Turning her head just enough, she whispered, “Taking a pop quiz. What are
“You know what I mean.”
“Eric, is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” Mrs. Munoz asked.
Eric sat up. “Uh, no. Mrs. Munoz.”
Mrs. Munoz stared at him, waiting.
“No, Senora Munoz.”
She smiled. “All right, class. You have fifteen minutes to finish the quiz. Ready, begin.”
The quiz was a disaster. Eric had a hard time focusing on anything besides wanting to know what Fiona and Keira — she was there, too — were doing in his class. He was barely able to get through half the questions, and most of those he knew he’d gotten wrong.
When Spanish ended, he tried again to catch up to the sisters before they were gone, but once more they gave him the slip.
His next class was P.E., where boys and girls were separated, so he didn’t expect to see them there. But he was wrong.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Coach Roberts said as soon as Eric’s class assembled in the gym. They were at the end of the first of two basketball weeks. That morning, there were four balls lined up on the floor at the far end of the court. “Today we’re going to do some speed drills. I want four equal lines at this end. When I say go, the first person in line will run down to the other end, pick up the ball, run back, and give it to the next person. That person
