Now Sasha smacks him. “It is not.”

“It does kind of sound like you,” says Carson. His face twists into a smile. “Does he call you and read you his latest lyrics over the phone?” He puts on a lower, raspier voice. It’s supposed to sound like Anders. It doesn’t. No one sounds like Anders. “Oh, Frankie. You’re so dark and mysterious and fine. You’re so metal you blow my mind.”

Frankie is still smiling, but there’s a little defensive hardness in her face now. A jagged rock in a meadow. Frankie wants people to think she and Anders are together. She wants it to be the truth. Her eyes steer away from Carson and trail through the library shelves, drifting toward me.

I turn back to the open encyclopedia. I need to be more careful.

“I need to finish this page,” says Frankie, opening her math book. “Or, actually, Carson needs to finish it for me.”

“Why do I need to finish it?”

“Because you’d rather have us drive you home than ride the bus.” Frankie’s smile is playful now. “Right?”

“Fine.” Carson spins her book toward him. “But I warn you, I’m not a math genius.”

“Good,” says Frankie. “Neither am I. We don’t want Ms. Grover to get suspicious.”

“Freaking physics,” huffs Sasha. She throws herself back in her chair. Her profile faces me. Behind her, on the other side of a half-bare bookshelf, I can see Jaden Angstrom reaching down for his book bag. Its strap is hooked around the shelf’s bottom corner.

Jaden pulls. The bag resists. The rickety shelf wobbles.

I see Jaden strengthen his grip. I see him pull again. Pull harder. I see the shelf begin to tilt.

And then I feel the shelf’s splintery wooden edge in my hand.

Without even thinking, I’ve crossed the floor. I catch the bookshelf before it can smash down on the table full of Frankie and her friends.

Will jumps out of his chair. Together we push the shelf upright. A few ancient hardcovers, jostled out of place, tumble down and whack against the gray carpet. I catch two books awkwardly in my arms.

Everyone stares. Sasha, still hunched over, protecting her head with one arm. Carson, blank faced. Frankie.

I shove the books, sideways, any which way, back onto their shelf. I make sure my movements are slow and clumsy.

Foolish. Foolish.

“Quick thinking, Superman,” says Will.

“You mean Supergirl.” Frankie’s words are for Will, but she’s looking straight at me. “Or Wonder Woman. That’s more like it.”

I start to back away. “It wasn’t that heavy.”

“Heavy enough to hurt somebody,” Frankie says. “Sasha could have been avalanched by books.”

Sasha is still just staring at me. She looks like she’s flipped over a rock and is studying the things scuttling for shelter beneath it.

I take another step backward.

Carson is watching me, too. He and Will are both looking at me like they’ve never seen me before.

And they haven’t. Not really. That’s been the whole point.