You’re back!” Gaby shouts. “Rebecca got your text! Where’d you go?”

I flop on the grass. “Not so loud,” I say. “The whole point of sneaking out is to not get caught.”

“No one even noticed you were gone,” Rebecca says.

“Thanks, Becca.” I sit up, opening my lunch bag and taking out my sushi tray. “I’m starving.”

I shove California rolls in my mouth while Gaby and Rebecca tell me about the planetarium show and how Adam Collins got in trouble for making fart noises or something. I laugh along with them, but I’m not really paying attention. I need to figure out how to sneak over to our meeting spot without getting caught by Ms. Garcia and without my friends seeing that I’m with Mattie Gómez. And I need a good story to tell Gaby and Rebecca.

“Mercedes, can you go to the mall with us tomorrow?” Gaby asks.

“Yeah,” says Rebecca, “you have to go because I have to get a new swimming suit. I need your opinion. Please?”

Normally, I would love to hang out at the mall with my best friends. Normally, I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to give advice and share my opinion. Normally, I wouldn’t think about it, just say yes. But this is not normal. “I’ll have to check with Cristina,” I say. I have an idea. “But right now, I need one more favor.”

“Ooh, what now?” Rebecca leans forward.

“You have to help me sneak out again.”

“Why?” Gaby asks. I shoot her a look and she says, “I mean, okay, what can we do?”

I make up a whole story about how Cristina is taking me shopping in San Francisco today. I tell them that Cristina wants to pick me up from here since it’s closer to the city, that she forgot to check with the school, that I don’t want her to get in trouble. “It’s sort of a special girls’ thing since Tristan is at his dad’s this weekend.”

Gaby is so excited for me that she doesn’t question my story. Rebecca has two dads and an older brother, so all she can think about is how great a girls trip would be.

“We’ll totally figure it out. No one will know you’re gone,” Rebecca says.

“Line up!” Ms. Garcia calls. I spot Mattie. As she nears the door and Ms. Garcia’s clipboard, her face reddens. What is she doing? I watch as she sort of flings a bit of trash to the right. She steps out of the line and chases the fluttering paper right into the grove of trees! I sort through my lunch and find the wrapper from the chopsticks. I hold it up and watch it wave in the breeze. Perfect.