It wasn’t much of an animal adventure, Derek thought—but it would have to do. He got to work, scribbling as fast as he could, struggling to keep his eyes open.…

“Derek?”

Derek woke up suddenly and realized he’d fallen asleep at his desk. His light was still on from the night before, and his alarm clock showed 9:45—a.m.!

“I’m awake,” he said sleepily.

“Breakfast is ready. It’s late—weren’t you going to do some review this morning?”

“Uh… yeah. Be right down.”

Derek felt a sense of panic rise from his stomach up through his chest. His essay!

Staring at the paper, he saw that he hadn’t even filled up half a page before falling asleep last night.

He had to finish it before Dave got there!

He washed up, got dressed, ran downstairs, ate breakfast, ran back up to his room, and scribbled away madly for half an hour until he’d finished his essay. Then he looked up at the clock—five to eleven! Dave would be there in half an hour!

Derek looked down at what he’d written. The essay was long enough, at least. But his handwriting was totally messed up—it looked like a crazy person had written it—and when he read it over, he realized that he’d mixed up the order of events. His teacher would definitely lower his mark if he didn’t rewrite the whole thing—neatly.

Derek set to work, knowing he’d blown it royally. This was going to take up the rest of his reviewing time. Unless he called things off with Vijay for tonight—and he’d already done that once this weekend—there would be no time for studying this weekend.

Derek gave in to the grim reality. He would just have to put in double duty studying during the week.

Of course, that would cut into his other commitments—the ones he cared about the most. But there was no time to think about that now.

Derek let out a big yawn, shook his head to get the cobwebs out, and started rewriting his essay.

Chapter Five FEAR FACTOR

“Thanks, Dr. and Mrs. Jeter—that was delicious,” Dave said, getting up from the picnic table. He and Derek had already finished their sandwiches and drinks, and they were anxious to start practicing as soon as they could.

But the rest of Derek’s family were barely halfway through their lunches, so the two boys busied themselves cleaning up the leftovers and paper goods.

“Glad you liked it, Dave. You can thank Sharlee, too—she helped spread the peanut butter and jelly.”

“Hey, good job, Sharlee!” Dave said with a grin. Sharlee smiled back, though her mouth was too full of PB and J and bread to answer.