This is crazy, I thought. The way I was twisting it all up was out of control. I made myself lean over and ask the girl next to me, a girl named Ashley, if she knew what had happened to Sarah Collier.

Ashley looked surprised. I don’t know if it was because I didn’t know the latest about Sarah, or because I did know anything at all. Maybe she was just surprised that I’d asked her a question. I’d never spoken to her before.

She smiled at me in a friendly way and said, “I heard that Sarah? Was, like, sent home? That she’s, like, totally? Suspended?”

Since Ashley spoke entirely in questions, I found myself nodding encouragingly after every word to keep her going.

“And, like, Danielle Bishop?” Ashley said.

Nod.

“Is?”

Nod.

“Going to take Sarah’s, like, place?”

Nod.

“On?”

Nod, nod.

“The cheerleading squad?”

“Yes.”

Ashley smiled. “At least for the next game?”

Nod.

“Against Wilson?”

My neck was tired and I was stunned. Sarah was doing all this for me? Then I cringed. I was letting her? I was hiding behind her? No. I wasn’t hiding, precisely. Was I?

And was I now thinking in questions like Ashley?

She smiled her perfect white teeth at me.

I hadn’t gotten caught. Sarah had. Sarah chose to cheat. Sarah chose to share the answers with other boys. Sarah got caught. Those are the risks and that’s just the way it played out.

Ashley asked if I was all right. I mumbled something and turned away to argue with myself.

Cheating together made us allies, Sarah and me. Even if it included Rob and Dan. I knew that the Hell’s Angels had an oath that an attack on any one of them was an attack on all. There was no man-to-man, one-on-one fight with an Angel. You tick one of them off, they all come and get you.

The members of NATO have the same oath of alliance. That an attack on any one member—France, the UK, Canada, Italy, Norway, etc.—would be considered by each ally as an attack on itself. Each country is expected to fight back accordingly. By that code of honor, an attack on Sarah is an attack on me.

So where did I stand? It really irked me that Sarah had shared the test with Rob and Dan, two brainless goons from her crowd. But now it occurred to me to wonder why they got off and she didn’t. How come they weren’t in trouble? And then I got it: They sold her out. They blamed her and walked away free. What lowlife cowards!

But what did that make me?

Dan