“I wouldn’t call it snooping,” Lucas said.

He saw she was smiling at him. Sometimes when she did that he had to find an excuse to turn away, as if he’d spotted somebody else on the other side of the cafeteria, afraid he might be blushing.

“What would you call it, then?”

“Trying to solve a mystery,” he said.

“Maybe it’s not that great a mystery,” Maria said. “Maybe it’s just a story your Gramps doesn’t want to tell. You know what I really think you should do?”

“Tell me.”

“Tell him you love him next time you see him,” she said.

“That’s it?” Lucas said.

She smiled again. “My mom says you can never do that enough with the people you love,” she said. “And don’t you always do what he wants you to do in basketball?”

“Yeah.”

“Do that now,” she said.

Maria already knew Lucas had picked Mr. Collins to write about now that he wasn’t writing about Gramps. Maria had picked her grandmother, because she wanted to write about how inspiring her life had been, starting her own dressmaking business as a young woman. And, she told Lucas, it was more than that. Her grandmother had been born in China. Maria wanted to focus on why her life was such a good example of how immigrants could come to America and lead great American lives. And she told Lucas that there were things that her grandmother had seen growing up that she didn’t like talking about.

“I’m so glad Mr. Collins asked us to do something like this,” Maria said.

“Well, I’m not!” Ryan said.

He’d been sitting at another table with some of the other Wolves’ players. Now he plopped himself down in the chair next to Maria’s.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Ryan said.

Maria smiled again. “That’s so unlike you.”

“I need more help with my paper,” he said.

“Do you mean you want Lucas to help?” Maria said. “Or both of us?”

“You want to help me too!” he said. “Awesome!”

“Sounds like more of a Lucas thing to me,” Maria said.

“Thanks a bunch,” Lucas said to her.

“Oh,” Maria said, “you don’t have to thank me.”

“What’s the problem now?” Lucas said.

“Other than I can’t write?” Ryan said.

“I thought we had you off to a good start,” Lucas said.

“But every time I try to write on my own, I get stopped,” Ryan said.

He turned to Maria and started to tell her how he couldn’t get less than a B on his paper or he wouldn’t be able to finish the basketball season.

“I know,” she said.

“You do?” Ryan said

“I think my distant relatives back in China know,” Maria said.

Lucas couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

“Funny?” Ryan said. “You think this is funny?” He groaned as he put his forehead down on the table.