He was pretty certain he knew what had happened, that Ryan hadn’t changed what Lucas had written, that he’d just left it exactly the way it was. But Lucas felt that if he tried to explain that to Mr. Collins, he would make things worse.

Especially for Ryan.

“I was just trying to help Ryan out,” Lucas said. “I knew how important it was for him to get a good grade, so he wouldn’t get kicked off the basketball team.”

“Kicked off the team?” Mr. Collins said. “By your grandfather, Lucas? That doesn’t sound like the Gramps I know.”

Little do you know, Lucas thought.

Ryan jumped in now.

“I can’t get anything less than a B this semester,” Ryan said. “I think I’m okay in my other classes. But you said these papers are going to make up most of our grade in English. And I just flat-out stink at writing, even though I know you’d never say that.”

He cleared his throat.

“Anyway,” Ryan said, “if I get a C, I can’t play sports second semester. My mom was a serious basketball player. But she’s just as serious about school. And my dad is more serious than her.”

Mr. Collins held up one of the papers.

“That’s all well and good,” he said. “But it’s clear that this isn’t your work. It’s Lucas’s.”

He turned to Lucas again.

“Did you write this paper for Ryan so he could stay on the basketball team?” Mr. Collins said. “Because if you did, it’s not just Ryan who cheated. You both did.”

Lucas knew he hadn’t cheated. He knew he was just trying to help Ryan out. Get him started. He’d trusted Ryan to go home and take the words he’d spoken to Lucas and then write them out himself. In his own voice. That was all. Lucas knew he’d never cheated in anything in his life. He’d never copy off somebody else’s paper or let anybody copy his. It wasn’t who he was.

He hated any kind of cheating, even when it had involved someone he loved.

Somehow, though, he still felt caught. Ryan wasn’t just his teammate. He was Lucas’s best friend. The last thing Lucas wanted to do was get him—or them—in more trouble.

“I was just trying to help,” Lucas said.

He wasn’t going to lie. But he didn’t know how he could help things by telling the whole story.

“Lucas knows what a bad writer I am,” Ryan said.

“You’re not a bad writer,” Mr. Collins said. “You just don’t love it. And let’s be honest, you don’t work nearly hard enough at it.”

“I guess I tried a little too hard,” Lucas said.

“In the process,” Mr. Collins said, “it appears that your work became Ryan’s.”