She shoots daggers from her brown eyes. “Let’s go,” Mercedes commands. “That direction.” She says this in a bossy way, even though we only have two options: back where we came from or keep going. I follow her out the glass door to the campus of Northern Madrone College.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to go that way,” I call to Mercedes. Instead of taking the sidewalk that hugs the science building, she’s crossed a grassy lawn toward a fence and some trees.

“It’s a shortcut.”

I run after her. Mercedes stays a few feet in front of me. I keep looking over my shoulder, checking to see if Ms. Garcia or Mrs. Ellingham saw us. But there is no one. No one to see two seventh graders wander away from a field trip at Northern Madrone College.

When I reach her, she’s at the fence that divides the path from the black oval track I saw on the map. “I’ve been on that track,” Mercedes says, watching a woman running. She’s alone, her arms pumping back and forth, her legs in rhythm. I don’t understand people who run without a reason. “There was a cross-country meet here last summer.”

“I hate running. I almost died last week when we had to run the mile run.”

Mercedes looks at me like I just admitted to hating ice cream. “Running is the best. You just go. It’s you and the ground. Doesn’t matter what anyone else does. You’re in a race with yourself.”

I study the runner on the track. She does look like she doesn’t hate it. “Are you really the fastest—” I stop when I see that she’s holding her phone. “Your phone? Mrs. Leeds made us put our phones in our lockers at school!” I cry. “How did you get to keep yours?”

“What? You never broke a rule before?” She keeps tapping. “It’s a good thing I kept it. What if there’s an emergency? You’ll be glad I broke the rules. Besides, I’m texting Rebecca—luckily she didn’t get hers confiscated. I’m telling her to cover for me.”

Oh.

Mercedes puts her phone in her back pocket and turns toward the path. “What are you waiting for?”

We leave the solo runner and follow the sidewalk around a bend and another bunch of trees. In front of us are two buildings. The one directly in front of us says SMILEY ARTS BUILDING in yellow metal letters. To our right is a smaller building. I can’t see the sign, but Mercedes heads in that direction.

“Humanities Building,” she breathes. “Home of the anthropology department.”