If he meant what I thought he meant, how did he know? How could he tell?

“Nice,” Bertie said. “I put totally other stuff. So that’s one more way we’re different. Right? Guess what I put. Number one is something I have that you don’t.”

While Bertie dug around in her backpack, I thought about all the things she had that I didn’t, like the same house and the same teachers and cousins in Colorado. And I couldn’t believe I’d had so much trouble thinking up a third way for us to be different. Now my mind was putting little check marks next to all of them.

I looked around the cafeteria. There were only a couple of kids at the fifth-grade table. Those were the kids who weren’t on the Safety Squad, who didn’t have any place to be right now. Those were the leftover kids, who no one would miss if they didn’t even show up.

The bell rang. “I can show you later,” Bertie said. “Come on, come on, iguanodon.”

I carefully folded up my eyeballs and followed Bertie into the hall. I looked back at the fifth-grade table. I really didn’t want to be one of those kids next year.

12. Robin’s Egg Blue, Shocking Pink

When we got to the classroom, Dee’s desk was still empty.

I wondered what happened if you left the cafeteria too early. Maybe this was a “zero-tolerance” school, and he was in super-big trouble. Or maybe it was a “green-yellow-red” school, and he was on yellow. Or maybe this was a “three-strikes” school, and he was only on strike one and it hardly mattered at all.

I put my homework on my desk and used my eraser to try to get rid of some of the smudgy spots. Then I opened my notebook to a clean page and started on the morning message.

Today Ms. G. had used a robin’s egg blue that looked like it was running out of ink. I was surprised it made it through the whole message. When I blurred my eyes, the letters looked like raindrops falling down. They pooled at the bottom around a circle that held a chubby eight.

I scrunched my shoulders up tight and let them fall down. I put my eyes back to clear. I could do this.

The first letter in the rain cloud was a small b, and I knew right away it was supposed to be a capital. I put a check mark in the corner. Then I wrote the big B, neat and curvy and even, like a good B to write Bertie with.

Ms. G. walked around the room, checking homework. When she got to my desk, she took a minute to read my three sames and three differents. Then she gave my paper an OK in shocking pink, with a smiley face in the O. Told you.