“Why, thank you, Austin,” Ms. G. said, and she wrote my words on the board.

“Austin?” I heard the new kid say so quiet, I bet he thought no one else was hearing him. Then he made a kind of snorting sound.

“Next,” Ms. G. said, turning back around, “you and a partner are going to brainstorm three ways you are similar.”

Before I could even worry about not having a partner, Bertie was at my desk, dragging her chair behind her.

“When nobody’s absent, we have an odd number of kids,” she said, “so someone has to be partners with Ms. G. I’m not sure why, but usually it’s me. But now that you’re here, we’re even Steven.”

A kid in front of us turned around.

“Not you, Steven,” Bertie called. “Sorry!”

Bertie tried to get all four feet of her chair balanced on the floor. Then she turned her eyeball paper sideways so it would fit on my desk.

“Sorry if I was talking your ear off before,” she said. “My dad says he’s surprised anyone in our family has any ears left. Get it? It’s supposed to be a joke. I was just trying to be, you know, helpful.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry, too.”

“No sweat, you bet. Sometimes people get upset.” Bertie tipped her head this way and that way with the rhyme. “I keep forgetting you just moved here. I can’t imagine what it’s like to move. My dad says some people grow roots fast, and some people grow roots slow. I’m one of the slow ones, so it’s best if I stay put. Except to see my cousins in Colorado. But that’s different. I don’t want to move there. I only want to visit.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to go to Colorado, but if it had as many trees as Bertie said, maybe it would be a good place to go. Maybe it would be kind of like a magical forest kingdom.

“Me too,” I said.

“You too, what?” she said.

“Want to go to Colorado,” I said. “That could maybe be our number one.”

Bertie nodded and wrote a big C. I wrote a big C.

She wrote a little o. I wrote a little o.

I looked up to make sure nobody saw I was copying. It doesn’t matter what school you’re at. Copying is just about the worst thing you can do.

“And even though it’s sad,” Bertie said, “I know what our number two can be. We both have people in our families who are quite ill.”

“Uh, right,” I said. I pretended to stretch to give Bertie a chance to get started with the words.