“Peter?” She looks surprised.

“Yes, why are you his friend?

“What do you mean? I’ve always known Peter.”

That’s another thing that annoys me.

“Why do you call him Peter? Everybody else calls him Pete.”

She doesn’t answer for a while. Then she says, “What’s all this about? Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“You sound like you are.”

I look out of the window for a minute—at people’s houses. Somebody’s raking up the front yard; there are big black trash bags in the driveway. When I turn back toward Mabley, I try to use a different tone of voice.

“I’m just tired of being . . . Pete always makes fun of me.”

“He’s just goofing around, it doesn’t mean anything. He does that to everybody. It’s just his way of . . .”

“You know, he cheats,” I tell her suddenly. “Today we had a math test, and he looked at my answers.”

We’re passing under the highway now. There’s a traffic light, and you can hear the traffic echoing under the bridge, and then the light changes, and when we come out again on the other side, it’s just another neighborhood, with cars parked in the driveways and leaves lying in the yards.

“You should know something about me,” Mabley says carefully. “I don’t like talking about people behind their backs.”

“I bet Pete says stuff about me.”

“Peter never talks about you,” she says.

Usually, when we get off the bus, we walk home together—it’s only three or four blocks. But this time she stops to talk with somebody else for a minute. She had overheard a conversation, where this kid was getting a dog, and Mabley wanted to know what kind, and I kind of hang around for a few seconds, listening in . . . but nobody turns or says anything to me, and eventually I think, What’s the point, and start to walk off alone. After a couple of blocks, I look back to see if Mabley is following me, but the sidewalk is empty, so I kick a few leaves and go home.

Ten

MS. KAMINSKI HAS PROMISED to announce who’s going to be on the Number Sense team. We’ve spent the past few weeks practicing. Every day, for the last ten minutes of class, Ms. Kaminski calls out math questions and we hand in our answer sheets at the end of the period—she writes down our scores in one of those heavy grade books with ruled lines. Pete’s still sitting next to me, but I don’t bother covering up my answers. I don’t even look at him.

She makes us wait until the end of the period before telling us to put away our books. “Our first competition is next month,” she says, standing as usual with her feet together in front of her desk. “But we’ve got some work to do before that. Kids from all over the city are going to be competing. I know a lot of you signed up for this and want to go. It breaks my heart we can only pick three of you, but that’s just how it is. . . . So, I’m just going to say the names, without more ado. Laura Kirkup, Pete Miller, and Ben Michaels. I know all of you are going to want to wish them good luck . . .” and then the bell rings, and that’s how quickly the whole thing happens, just like that. Everybody gets up to leave.