After lunch, kids wander off to their lockers, but it seems like a waste of time to me. Maybe they just want to stand around and talk or something. I don’t have anyone to talk to anyway, so I just grab my backpack and go.

But it’s getting pretty heavy by this point: we have quite a few books. That’s mostly what we seem to be doing today, getting textbooks, and some of them are as big as shoe boxes. Social studies is the worst—the textbook weighs about five pounds, and I can’t even fit it into my backpack anymore. I have to carry it in my arms.

There’s only one more class to get through—English. I feel like I’ve run a marathon or something, or stayed too long in the pool, and I’m all kind of shrunk and worn-out. Everything echoes in my head. On the way to the classroom, somebody says, “I guess you know this already, but you can put some of that stuff in your locker.”

It’s the girl from next door, the girl with the yellow hair. My heart jumps—it’s the first time somebody has talked to me all day. I mean, somebody who isn’t a teacher. She’s shorter than she seemed on the trampoline. I’m used to being one of the smallest kids in class, but I can look her in the eye.

“I didn’t bring a lock.”

“Well, you’re going to hurt your back carrying all that stuff.”

“It’s not too bad. I don’t really mind.”

She shrugs. “Suit yourself.” But she’s still walking with me. “I’m Mabley, by the way. It’s kind of a dumb name, but I guess I’m stuck with it.” She says “I guess” a lot, but she also seems pretty sure of herself.

“I’m Ben.” But I don’t mention that we’re next-door neighbors.

After school, I wait for Mom in the parking lot by the car. She’s a little late coming out, and when she sees me, she says, “You look like I feel.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tired,” she says, putting down her purse on the hood of the Toyota, and another bag, and her bottle of water, and trying to find her keys. “Go on, say it.”

“Say what?”

“Do I have to go back there tomorrow?”

She opens the car and we get in—it’s nice to be able to shut the door on everything. She feels like my mom again; it’s just the two of us.

“Do I have to go back there tomorrow?” I ask.

“You and me both, kid,” she says.

The school bus leaves at seven o’clock the next morning, so Granma wakes me at six. “I don’t mind getting up,” she says. “It’s the only cool hour in the day.”

It’s funny because Mom is in bed on the other side of the room. She groans and rolls over, like a kid. “I don’t want to get up,” she says, and Granma gives me a look. Like we’re the sensible ones.