The loud, and very normal whine, made Ethan’s mouth twitch. ‘‘Relax, this isn’t going to take us that long. Once Cam gets back and can put in full days on it, we’ll move along. And once school’s out, you can pick up a lot of the grunt work.’’

‘‘School is out.’’

‘‘Hmm?’’

‘‘Today was it.’’ Now Seth grinned, wide and bright. ‘‘Freedom. It’s a done deal.’’

‘‘Today?’’ Pausing in his work, Ethan frowned. ‘‘I thought you had a couple days yet.’’

‘‘Nope.’’

He’d lost track of things somewhere, Ethan supposed. And it wasn’t Seth’s style—not yet, anyway—to volunteer information. ‘‘Did you get a report card?’’

‘‘Yeah—I passed.’’

‘‘Let’s see how.’’ Ethan set his tools down, brushed his hands on his jeans. ‘‘Where is it?’’

Seth shrugged his shoulders and kept sanding. ‘‘It’s in my backpack over there. No big deal.’’

‘‘Let’s see it,’’ Ethan repeated.

Seth did what Ethan considered his usual dance. Rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, adding a long-suffering sigh. Oddly enough, he didn’t end with an oath, as he was prone to. He walked over to where he’d dumped his back-pack and riffled through it.

Ethan leaned down over the port side to take the paper Seth held up. Noting the mutinous expression on Seth’s face, he expected the news would be grim. His stomach did a quick clench and roll. The required lecture, Ethan thought with an inner sigh, was going to be damned uncomfortable for both of them.

Ethan studied the thin, computer-generated sheet, pushing back his cap to scratch his head. ‘‘ All A’s?’’

Seth jerked a shoulder again, stuffed his hands in his pockets. ‘‘Yeah, so?’’

‘‘I’ve never seen a report card with all A’s before. Even Phillip used to have some B’s, and maybe a C tossed in.’’

Embarrassment, and the fear of being called Egghead or something equally hideous rose swiftly. ‘‘It’s no big deal.’’ He held up a hand for the report card, but Ethan shook his head.

‘‘The hell it’s not.’’ But he saw Seth’s scowl and thought he understood it. It was always hard to be different from the pack. ‘‘You got a good brain and you ought to be proud of it.’’

‘‘It’s just there. It’s not like knowing how to pilot a boat or anything.’’

‘‘You got a good brain and you use it, you’ll figure out how to do most anything.’’ Ethan folded the paper carefully and tucked it in his pocket. Damn if he wasn’t going to show it off some. ‘‘Seems to me we ought to go get a pizza or something.’’

Puzzled, Seth narrowed his eyes. ‘‘You packed those lame sandwiches for dinner.’’