“We didn’t get to talk this morning,” Vijay said as they stood in the cafeteria line at lunch. “What songs did you come up with?”

“Um, I’ve, uh, got a couple to play for you.”

“What are they?”

“They’re… no, it’s better if you just hear them without me blowing the surprise,” Derek said.

He was making this all up as he went—not having even a vague idea of which songs he might want to suggest. He just needed a little more time to come up with something!

“So, can we meet after school?” Vijay asked, a slight note of frustration in his voice.

“Um, no, actually—not today. I’ve got to spend the afternoon reviewing for the test, because I didn’t get it done over the weekend.”

Vijay sighed. “Man, I’m starting to wonder if you really want to do this with me.… ”

“I do!” Derek said quickly. “It’s just… ”

He took a deep breath. There was no sense evading things any longer.

“Look, Vij, I’ll level with you. I’ve just got too much on my plate this week. After the test and tryout I’ll have more time.”

“But that would leave just two weeks!” Vijay said. “We don’t want to get up there onstage and do something half-baked. We want to win this thing! The whole enchilada!”

“Speaking of which,” Derek said, “look what’s for lunch.”

“Enchiladas—ha!” The two boys shared a laugh. “Seriously, though, Derek—we need to nail what song we’re doing, like, right away. Can’t we meet after school for a little while? You can study later tonight, can’t you?”

“That’s not how it works around my house,” Derek said, although Vijay, as an old friend, already knew that in the Jeter household, nothing happened until the homework was done.

“We could study together!” Vijay suggested, but Derek shook his head.

“Not unless you want to study with Sam Rockman, too. He’s coming over after school to study with me.”

“What? But—”

“It’s no use—I promised him I’d help him go over everything.”

“Oh. I see,” said Vijay, clearly disappointed.

“I couldn’t stand the way Gary was making fun of him, so I… well, you get the idea.”

Vijay nodded. “I get it,” he said. “You’re doing a good thing, Derek. But aren’t you busy enough?”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” Derek said as they walked to a table. “But I had to study anyway.”

“We two could have gotten through it a lot faster.”

“True. But then, where would that leave Sam? I couldn’t stand it if Gary got to fire away at him after this big test.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Vijay said. “Too bad. But okay. So when can we get together?”

“Well, we could do an hour on Tuesday, after Sharlee’s karate class… ”