There are brown envelopes on the tables with the questions on them, and we each get a sheet of paper for writing down the answers, but we’re not allowed to write down any calculations or notes. So it’s like the opposite of a normal math test, where you have to show your work. Number Sense is totally mental.

Most of the questions are pretty easy, but the point is, you have to answer them as fast as you can. Questions like “1/2 of 39 is _____” or “3/5 equals _____%.” There are tougher questions, too. “517 × 25,” for example. Or “69 × 17 − 45 × 12.” Basically, the trick is to break down all the questions into different parts, where each of the parts is pretty easy, like 7 × 60, but then you have to remember your answers to all the other parts, too, and add them together. As soon as I sit down, my palms start to sweat. The test lasts forty-five minutes, but I hardly even notice the time. Then the bell rings and I haven’t finished. There are eighty questions and I’ve answered seventy-three of them.

Afterward, I ask Laura, “How many did you answer?” and she says, “I got to the end, but I skipped four or five along the way.”

Pete overhears us. “If you don’t know something, you should just guess. I mean, why not.”

I say, “How many did you answer?”

“All of them.” He smiles at me.

Ms. Kaminski lets us wander around the gym, as long as we don’t disturb any of the other tests. Pete knows kids from other schools. Laura brought a book along—she’s reading Children of Dune, it’s as thick as a brick. There are hundreds of kids in the gym, a lot of them sitting at the plastic fold-out tables on the court and writing furiously, with their heads down, concentrating, and the rest just hanging around and talking, so there’s like this continuous noise that never really gets louder or softer.

For lunch, I eat my usual sandwiches, sitting with Ms. Kaminski on one of the bleachers. “Your mom must be really proud of you,” she says. I mean, it’s just something to say, because we’re sitting there, and she doesn’t know what else to talk about.

“I guess.”

“I know she is,” Ms. Kaminski says. “She talks about you all the time. She wants to know how you’re doing.”

I don’t say anything—it’s not really a question—and anyway, it bugs me that my mom talks to my teachers about me in the staff room. That’s not something an average kid should have to deal with. But I can’t really say that to Ms. Kaminski, who eventually breaks the silence herself.

“You’re doing great, that’s what I tell her. Because you are.”

She has a nice face. I guess she’s older than most of my teachers, but she still wears makeup and has long dangly earrings that are long enough you can actually hear them sometimes. When she talks to you, she lets you know that you’ve got her full attention, like that’s what you want; but the truth is, I don’t want it—I don’t want her attention at all, so I feel bad and just kind of don’t say much, because I don’t know what to say.