Macii turned her phone around and looked at something on the screen. “And this isn’t you standing with J. Crederman on the red carpet here for the High Stakes Championship? Like, last year?”

Getting to be my dad’s plus-one for the High Stakes award ceremony was the highlight of my whole life. Remember when we went shopping for my suit? And how my dad got you a suit too, just in case your mom won in the producer category? How was it possible that Macii could take one of my best memories and turn it into one of my worst?

“It says here that J. Crederman brought his son, Rodney Crederman, as his escort.”

“How did you—?” I said.

“When I heard Van’s song last night, I did some research. I always try to find out about people who do disgusting things. I found an article that said J. Crederman’s family moved to Arizona. So I looked for pictures of him and his kids and there. You. Were. I have to say, I’m not surprised. I always had a weird feeling about you.”

She smiled but not nicely.

I could tell that Rigmor and Dave didn’t know what to say.

“So Rodney Creeperman,” said Macii. “You’ve been lying to us.”

“Macii,” said Rigmor. But then she didn’t say anything else.

“No, I haven’t,” I said. Except for changing my last name and never talking about my dad or what we were doing in Stony Butt, I didn’t lie. I can’t remember what that’s called, but it’s not lying, exactly.

“I personally am very uncomfortable with this,” said Macii, sounding like she was giving a speech to the principal. “It’s very deceptitious of you.”

That’s the other thing about Macii. She likes to use big words but doesn’t know very many, so she just mangles them even worse than I do. I bet she’s not getting any special compliments from Mr. Woo.

The buzzer rang and everyone got up, like we were being ordered by a remote control. We packed up our lunch stuff and went to our next classes, and I wondered if I was in the middle of a nightmare, one of those ones that just gets worse and worse.

So that’s it for now. Hope you are good.

Rodney

11

Hey, Larry,

Okay, just one more update. Just in case you wondered what happened after the thing with Macii.

As soon as history was over, I practically ran out of class. I tried not to look at anyone so I wouldn’t have to see if they were looking at me.

I hoped Macii wouldn’t tell everyone about my dad, but I knew she probably would. I just wanted to get out of there. And obviously I wasn’t going to go with Rigmor to see her brother at the comics store.