“Oh.” I squint up at Grimshaw and try to picture her bouncing around in school colors, a purple and gold phoenix rising up out of the junkyard. I shake my head. Not a Grimshaw, not in Colchis. I can’t imagine the conditions under which that would happen. But there are some things you don’t say, even to your best friend. “Why?” I ask. “I mean, what’s the point?”

“Fun,” she says.

“Fun,” I repeat.

“We don’t have enough fun,” says Grimshaw. “It’s our last year of high school. Why not have some fun?”

I’m trying to think of a delicate way to phrase to Grimshaw that being a cheerleader really doesn’t signify much these days, and it’s not worth risking the inevitable rejection. She’s still poor, I’m still smart, this is still America, and we’re not going to be cheerleaders.

“I just wonder if we’re really cheerleader material,” I say finally. She climbs down from the Helmers and sits next to me on Mr. Sprague.

“I know it’s not dance,” she says suddenly. “But it’s movement, it’s performance.”

“Choreography,” I provide helpfully, just to be sporting.

“Exactly!” she says. “It’s a start, it’s something. I mean, I have to work from where I am.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. So the notion might have some merits, at least for her. “But why does this need to involve me?” The instant that I say that, I remember earlier today, how the straight-D student signing up for Honors classes probably violated every notion Guidance had of people who deserve nice things, but the fact that my mother is now their boss made all those objections melt away, even though they were Mrs. Pentz’s new standards I was violating. Privilege. The word just comes to me. I have it, and she wants to borrow it. I was just a tourist in Foundations.

“I’ll think about it,” I tell her. “You have to give me time to get used to the idea, though.”

“I need an audience,” she says. She starts telling me about her idea of starting a dance team at the high school, that she thought about it all summer, and that if she’s a cheerleader, it’ll be more likely to work, as she’ll have more visibility and credibility. People will take her seriously. She worked at Monique’s Dance Academy, she says, teaching the kids, so she had to get really good at technique.

“You taught at Monique’s?” I repeat. “How did you get there?”