“It was only a little bad,” said Danny. “It was also a little accurate. Of course we can tease each other. If we didn’t poke each other, yeah, how would we even know that we belonged. I just wish we could stop poking each other right in the bleeding wounds. Let’s try to heal the wounds, and poke somewhere else.”

“I’ll try,” said Pat. “But we’re high-school kids, you know.”

“We haven’t all aced the SAT and the ACT,” said Hal.

“You know that those tests measure nothing except your ability to take tests,” said Danny.

“But since college consists of passing a whole bunch of tests for four years, that’s a good skill to have,” said Sin.

“I wish we were smarter so we could form a team like Scorpion,” said Wheeler.

“Which one are you?” asked Hal. “Sylvester?”

“I wish,” said Wheeler. “I’m more like … one of the civilians who gets in the way.”

“I’m Paige,” said Laurette. “I’m the normal one who helps them communicate with humans.”

“So Danny is Walter?” asked Wheeler. “The genius?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Danny.

“You so need to get cable in that little house of yours,” said Xena. “Scorpion. It’s a TV show about a team of geniuses who don’t get along, only they really need each other so they keep almost breaking up but then they can’t survive without each other.”

“We don’t keep almost breaking up,” said Danny.

“We also don’t have to get ratings every week so we can stay on the air,” said Pat. “It’s always got all this fake conflict, only I find myself caring even though I know it’s just writers manipulating me.”

“It’s the little boy, Ralph,” said Xena. “That’s what makes me care.”

“Danny isn’t Walter,” said Hal. “Danny is Cade. The grownup with real power in the real world, who comes in and saves their asses time and again.”

“But also he’s the one who keeps getting them into danger in the first place,” said Laurette. “Sorry, Danny, but … kind of true.”

“We’re discussing a TV show,” said Pat.

“Because it applies to us,” said Hal. “Come on, Pat, we can’t just sit around thinking serious thoughts and discussing Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and the Elder Eddas.”

“Where did Kierkegaard come from?” asked Pat. “Who’s heard of Kierkegaard?”

Sin had her phone out, trying to remember how to spell Kierkegaard—if she had ever known. Hal started helping her.

“Danny doesn’t need cable,” said Wheeler. “He needs a tablet.”

“But to stream any shows, he’d have to get wi-fi, which he doesn’t have unless he gets cable, and then he’d have cable,” said Xena.

Sin started reading. “‘Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be oneself.’”

“I have no idea what that means,” said Danny.