My heart is still beating too fast, and I say to Jake, “I feel like we’re lying about something.”

But he laughs. “We’re not lying, we’re just not telling anybody. Don’t worry. My mom wouldn’t care anyway.”

“But if she wouldn’t care, why don’t we tell her?”

“Forget about it,” he says. “I’m in enough trouble already.” He means the spelling test.

I want to say, But that doesn’t make sense—you’re contradicting yourself. But I let it go. Until I get home, when I tell my mom. It’s supposed to be, like, a funny story, like, look what Jake made me do. She’s putting supper on the table—we usually eat together before my dad gets back from work. At least, that’s what we’ve started to do recently.

She looks at me with a kind of twist in her mouth. She doesn’t seem mad, but she doesn’t seem happy about it either. “Don’t worry about it, Ben,” she says, because she can see my face. “These things happen. I can talk to Mrs. Schultz about it tomorrow. She’ll understand. It’s not a big deal. It’s just—it’s usually better—just to tell people this kind of thing right away.”

“I wanted to, but Jake wouldn’t let me.”

“Jake isn’t the boss of you,” Mom says.

Later that night, when I’m getting ready for bed, my dad checks in on me. He usually works late, but if he gets home in time, he comes in and kisses me good night. But this time he stands in the doorway in his suit and tie and looks at me for a minute. “Hey, Dad,” I say.

“All right, kid. I think you’ve got a little explaining to do. Come on.”

I guess Mom must have told him, because even though it’s almost eleven o’clock and I’m already in my pajamas, he marches me into the hallway. Mom is standing there, looking upset. “What’s the point?” she says to him. “I mean, if I can’t even tell you a dumb thing like that without . . .” But he ignores her and she follows us out to the elevator while we wait for the doors to open.

“What are you doing to him?” she says. “What are you trying to prove? His sense of guilt is already overdeveloped.”

“What does that mean?” My dad keeps pushing the elevator button. It sometimes takes a while for it to come.

“It means he never does anything wrong. He’s scared to. Even his teachers say . . .”

“What do his teachers say?” my dad asks.

I look back and forth between them. They’re talking about me like I’m not even there.

“They wouldn’t mind if he acted up once in a while. Mrs. Klaussen told me that herself. The kids treat him like a Goody Two-shoes.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being good,” my dad says, and the elevator arrives—the doors open, and Mom watches us from the hallway as we get in.

Dad and I ride down to Jake’s apartment in silence.