“For all your trouble. Sweet peas for Sweet Pea.”

I look down. Of course, money would have been awesome, but I didn’t exactly do my job just as she instructed, and I can’t help feeling a little bit guilty. “I thought you didn’t like my nickname.”

She digs into her pocket and hands me a fistful of five-dollar bills, a couple of singles, and two Susan B. Anthony coins. “Here. I guess this is what you’re really wanting.” She pats my shoulder and heads past me and into her house. “It’s growing on me,” she says. “The nickname, I mean.”

We spent all day yesterday reviewing for our final exams. When someone complains that we’ve never had this much work at the end of the school year, Mrs. Young says, “Well, you’ve never been mere days from entering eighth grade either. The workload is about to change, y’all, and if I don’t prepare you for that, I’ve failed as your teacher.”

On Wednesday we finish up our reviews for Thursday’s finals, and then we have field day on Friday, our last day. But first we have to survive research presentations. We’re so close to summer I can nearly taste the chlorine water of the community pool. I get giddy every time I remember that Kiera has her very own pool and we’re actually friends again, so maybe I’ll even get to use it.

Just as we break for lunch on Wednesday, I find my way over to Oscar’s desk. “Hey, how’d you do on that grammar review?”

He walks past me to where our cubbies are on the side of the room and grabs his backpack. “Fine, I guess.”

I eye the contents of his locker to see if maybe he brought his lunch, but he slams the door before I can see. “Aren’t you going to lunch?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I signed up for JV wrestling and my mom is taking me for the physical during lunch.”

“Wrestling?” I remember his mom mentioning something on the phone a while ago, but I forgot to ask him about it again. “You don’t even like horsing around with your brothers.”

“Maybe I do,” he says, defiant. “Maybe you don’t know everything about me.”

His voice is louder and more defensive than I’m used to. Almost like we’re . . . fighting. “Well, okay? But I feel like I know a whole lot. I am your best friend, ya know.”

He brushes past me. “I gotta go, so I can make it back in time for class.”

“We’re so behind on America’s Most Haunted episodes that I’ve resorted to rewatching the ones we’ve already seen.” He doesn’t say anything, so I quickly explain, “I wouldn’t watch any of the newer ones without you. Obviously.” Oscar and I have a very serious unspoken promise when it comes to America’s Most Haunted, and we’ve watched every single episode for the first time together. It’s honestly made it easier to not just gobble up the whole thing in one month. Watching an episode without him for the first time would be a betrayal of the highest sort.