Our school only has about two hundred kids and a surprising number of them are elite athletes, including Ben! He’s been in a bunch of videos, mostly doing freestyle with his brothers. He’s sponsored by GearX, which is this independent bike company. His dad and brothers have big-name sponsors. They all get lots of free stuff to wear and ride. In the other sixth-grade class there are two girls who are climbers. All those athlete-type kids are popular, or they would be if they went to school more. Ben says they have to miss a lot of days because they’re at climbing and biking competitions. He said the older kids are sponsored, which I think is like when an actor promotes a product, like perfume or jewelry or cars, only the athlete kids advertise outdoor clothes and bikes and equipment. I should see if I can get sponsored by Mrs. Perfect Pies. Or peas. Anyway, the point is that adventurous people are impressed when you get injured doing dangerous things, so jumping off the cliff and nearly dying was my best social move so far.

Ben has only been at Stony Butte for a year and a half because his family moves around a lot to do stunts, so he’s pretty new here too.

The day after the jump, Dave and Macii and Rigmor came over to where I was eating lunch alone. When Ben’s actually at school, he goes to the bike park on his break. They said they were sorry for bailing on me when Chum came over to beat me up. They said they’d learned that it was best to avoid Chum when he got mad like that. I said I understood and that they probably shouldn’t call him Chum because he doesn’t like it and would instead like to be called Fisherman.

Then they invited me to hang out with them, and I got to talk to Rigmor, which was excellent.

What’s even more surprising is that Fisherman and I are sort of getting to be friends now. It’s hard to say if a person is technically your friend if you have to worry he will break your arm if you say the wrong thing. But he says hi and doesn’t menace me. I also don’t say much when I see him just in case I make him mad again.

At the end of school a few days ago, he came over to me and asked if I was having any problems with anyone. I said no. And he said that was good and he looked sort of mad at the thought of me having problems, which I appreciated.

Classes here are a lot easier than at Circle Square, and while I’m not exactly popular, I haven’t been used as a battering ram since the first time. So that’s good.