Carefully, I open the envelope and swap the letters out, doing my best to reseal it while also crossing my fingers that Mr. Joe isn’t sensitive to details. Based on the state of his office, though, I think I might’ve lucked out.

I crack the office door and wait for the janitor to walk into one of the other offices before I make a run for the back door. My bike is right where I left it, and by an act of God or maybe just a late client, I beat my mom home from work with just enough time to pretend I’m knee-deep in homework. Maybe there are some benefits to only having one set of parental eyes on you at a time.

My brain is running a thousand miles a minute. I wonder what Kiera will think when she sees her letter and my response in the paper. I hope Oscar isn’t still mad at me. And what the heck was Dad even talking about when he mentioned papers from a bank in Connecticut to Mom?

Cheese rolls around on my math homework and leaves a loving bite mark on the top corner of my grammar worksheet. Who can even think about long division or participles at a time like this? I glance down at the date on my calendar and count out the days. I have less than thirteen actual school days before I’m officially an eighth grader. How did I go from hanging out with Oscar bored out of our minds just last week to my life completely exploding all at once?

I scratch the top of Cheese’s head as he nudges my history book off the kitchen table and rolls over on his side so that he looks like a crescent roll–shaped cat. “You’re not being very helpful, but I appreciate the thought.”

Mom walks in from work a few minutes later, tired circles under her eyes, and finds me at the kitchen table, trying to do homework. She plops down beside me and Cheese hops into her lap. After taking a look at me, she says, “Looks like we both had long days, huh?”

I shut my history book with a loud thud. “You’re not kidding.”

“School okay?” she asks. “No one gave you a hard time about getting sick at the party, did they?”

“Nah, it was fine.”

She reaches over and pushes my bangs out of my face a little. “You want to ditch dinner at home and see a movie?”

“Are you serious?” Mom isn’t usually the type of parent to spring a trip to the movies on a school night, but whatever’s gotten into her is working in my favor.

“Serious as my love for buttered popcorn.”

Mom loops her foot around the leg of my chair and drags me closer to her, slinging an arm over my shoulder and giving me a quick kiss on the forehead.