Cover

Dedication

To every reader who unknowingly held my hand through the journey of forging a second book with the eager question, “When is the next one coming out?”

This one’s for you, because of you. It is your personal win, and I wish you many more of them.

The game has a mind of its own.

But so do you.

CHAPTER ONE

I SWEAR I DIDN’T DO it. That’s what you want to hear from me, right?”

At twelve years old, Ahmad Mirza probably shouldn’t have been used to roundtable interrogations. Or know from experience what your captors wanted to hear before they would let you out from under the lights aimed at your face. “I mean, sneaking around and stealing isn’t part of my daily routine.”

It was the usual setup. The same old faces were clustered in the conference room, all wearing various expressions of dismay. Mrs. Evans, his homeroom teacher, clung to her coffee mug like it was a lifesaver and she was a woman overboard. Mr. Willis, the art teacher who always wore a jolly expression and cheerily arranged dreadlocks, seemed abnormally grim.

The door creaked open ominously, and Ms. Mallory, the nosy office secretary, peered in. “Do you still need the vice principal, Mr. Willis?” she asked.

Her voice sounded a little too eager, in Ahmad’s opinion. Resentment bubbled up and he tried to push it down. Today wasn’t an ordinary day. Today, he might have already pushed the limits of any patience PS 54 had for Ahmad Mirza and his escapades. But he ended up blurting it out anyway.

“Go ahead, Ms. Mallory. You can bring the torture devices too, but I won’t talk.”

Mr. Willis sighed heavily. “No, we don’t need him, Ms. Mallory. Just . . . close the door.”

Ms. Mallory shot Ahmad a giddy smile as she did just that. She was probably off to make sure she still had Ahmad’s parents on speed dial, and she probably did.

He didn’t want to think about that, though. That started the squirming up again, and the shaking in his legs that would reach his voice and really prove his false bravado to be just that: an act. Even if this was Ahmad’s normal—lunch detention and angry teachers—he didn’t want to look his mother in the eyes and tell her he messed up again.

“This sucks,” Ahmad mumbled to himself.

Especially because today—for once—it wasn’t his fault. There had been no fight over the contents of his lunch box, no classmate leaning in and jeering at the green chili–spiked mashed potatoes that made your nose sting with the scent of fresh mustard-seed oil, or the little dried fish even he hated with eyes and silvery scales still intact.