To make my point, I pop a quick wheelie and hold it. When I make it a full minute without even having to grab the table, I get even fancier and take one hand off my rims.

Then someone lifts my handgrips from behind, pushing my front wheels down. “Wheels on the ground, Ms. Ethrige.”

I spin around. It’s Dr. Grayling, of course, fun-killer that he is.

“Don’t want any busted heads before next Sunday, do we?”

I bite back a rude answer. Twelve more days, I remind myself. Out loud I say lightly, “Guess I can hold off ’til the new wheels arrive.”

He chuckles, like I’m oh so cute. “That will be nice, won’t it?” he says. Then he even pats my chair like it’s his pet poodle. “Rules don’t change because we get new toys, though, now do they?” Before I can ask what that’s supposed to mean, he heads across the cafeteria to annoy someone else.

My face burns. I turn back to my friends, who thankfully don’t make a big deal over it, though I see Tina poke Logan hard in the side to keep him quiet.

I break for the door ten minutes before the bell, Dawn trailing after me. When I tell her I’m meeting Devontae in the library during study hall for our project, she gets a knowing grin.

“Isn’t that nice,” she says, and I get a stabby, annoyed feeling. I’m not sure who I’m even annoyed at right now. Fish? Dawn? Devontae? The whole school?

Either way, I just shove my wheels hard and roll faster so I don’t have to think too hard about it.

When we settle down to work on our project, I can’t focus. Dawn’s up front talking to the librarian. She’s gotten a little better about that—hanging back at the edges of a room instead of right up in my space all the time.

Still, all I want to do is move. Somewhere. Anywhere.

I do a crummy job of hiding it, because soon Devontae leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his red-embroidered Western shirt. “No pressure here,” he says, “but we do need to get this nailed down—I wasn’t joking that I only get to do rodeo if my grades stay up. I can tell your mind’s roaming.”

“No … yes … I know,” I say. Sort of had bigger things on my mind here lately, I don’t add. “I’m sorry. It’s … I got a lot on my plate with everything coming up.”

He nods. “I get that. You got to be excited as all get-out. I know how I felt when I finally got that new Chilean saddle I wanted so long.”

Yeah. Not really the same thing.

For a minute, I think Devontae’s going to let it go, but then he looks at me harder. “Is it just me,” he says slowly, “or are you not excited about all this?”

I can tell he’s confused why I wouldn’t be. Just like he was so fence-post dense about those rodeo bathrooms that I had to spell it all out for him. I know he’s not doing it on purpose, but I feel myself start to get a little annoyed.