Cheng sees the gleam in my eyes and just shakes his head, grinning, in a way that means he realizes it’s a done deal. Mostly, he likes that I’m a big personality, which means he doesn’t have to be. We’re a good fit. His lacrosse buddies think I’m hilarious, and the drama club kids find him totally unthreatening for a jock. My mom loves him (though she jokes way too often that he would be easier to live with than I am), and his folks … well, they never pictured a boyfriend of any kind, so they’re still working on how they feel about his first being as me as I am. But they’ve never interfered, either; they’re very “let Cheng be Cheng.”

Ms. Silverthorn finishes recording attendance and makes announcements, one of which is that Saratoga Remembers is hiring for the summer. Please. She can’t really believe anyone wants to spend their last summer before college in a musty local history museum. Mr. Gale, the curator or whatever, is an old student of hers and sometimes comes to the drama club shows; she always lets him into the green room to say “break a leg.” Every single time, she makes a joke of telling him to watch his step, so I finally asked my mom what that was about, and apparently, he was a klutz of epic proportions back in the day. He’s seemingly managed to evolve into mild awkwardness now, but I’m not especially eager to spend a whole summer with the guy.

Yet when Ms. Silverthorn asks who wants an application, Cheng raises his hand.

“Seriously, babe?” I keep it a whisper but pointed.

He shrugs. “Easy money. Nobody goes there—I’ll be watching YouTube all day.”

He means it? My whisper gets less whispery. “And if someone comes in?”

He does what I’m guessing he thinks is a tour guide voice. “Look over here: Pictures of a horse. Look over there: That’s an old hat.”

“If you want to throw away a perfectly good summer—”

Ms. Silverthorn clears her throat. “You boys seem to think this is the lunchroom, but it’s not.” She waits for us to look appropriately remorseful. She has a soft spot for me, for all the drama kids really, but that doesn’t mean I get a free pass; none of us do. Her classroom, our respect. That’s the deal.

When the book discussion starts, it’s worse than I thought. It’s not about the good stuff—how Hank got there, how he used his knowledge of the future—but about feudal systems. Ugh. It’s already been impossible to focus on homework since spring break because I’ve mentally already moved on to college. Every single hour is some kind of medieval torture, a fresh cut each time the bell rings. I can’t even.