For Junie, it was different. She bounced in her seat like always, calling out to one or two of the kids in her class. There was a bunch of invitations stuffed into her book bag, with a clown sticker on the envelope of each.

First period was science. The class went over the answers to the quiz the day before on photosynthesis first. Then Mrs. Unger told them to put their books away.

“People,” she said, “we have only eight weeks to the science fair. That doesn’t give you a lot of time to get busy with your projects. I know you’ve had your thinking caps on. This morning, as I have told you, I want to hear what you’ve got planned.”

Any other time Nate would feel bad that he didn’t have his proposal ready.

“Yes, Jeannine?” the teacher said. “Do you want to share your project with us?”

Jeannine Penney, the star science student since first grade, explained that she’d be pursuing a project in her particular field of interest, human psychology. “I was thinking of using these kids I babysit for as subjects. I’d show them scary TV shows and compare how shook up they were with how they felt after watching Mr. Rogers.”

“That’s a good thought, Jeannine,” said Mrs. Unger. “Just be careful you don’t actually traumatize these children with inappropriate images.”

“Of course, Mrs. Unger. I’ll work on that.”

Kirk, known to be a wise guy, said he was planning to study the effects of alcohol. He’d drink one of his dad’s beers—purely for scientific purposes—and then try driving his dirt bike through an obstacle course. He’d follow that up with a succession of additional drinks and monitor the effects on his bike-riding ability.

“Inappropriate, Kirk,” said Mrs. Unger. “Perhaps if you wish to study the effects of alcohol, you can experiment with the fruit fly population.”

There were more: Someone was growing beans in different soils, as expected, and someone else was building a volcano. Sooner or later, Nate figured, Mrs. Unger would ask him what he had planned.

The teacher called on Naomi next.

“This one ought to be good,” someone whispered. It was Pauline Calhoun, the girl Larry had a crush on. She jangled her charm bracelet, then flicked her hair over her shoulder and shook it out like some girl on a shampoo commercial.

Nate studied Naomi’s face to see if she had heard. If she had, she wasn’t letting on. She appeared to be giving all her concentration to a pen-and-ink drawing of some kind of imaginary animal on the front of her science notebook. So much concentration, in fact, that she hadn’t noticed that she’d smeared black ink on her cheek.

“I need a little more time to come up with an idea, Mrs. Unger,” she said. “I didn’t get home till late yesterday.”