“I get As in everything and A pluses in some stuff. But I work on English for the longest and I’m a little less good at gym. Mostly when I get bad marks it’s because I lost marks because my teachers are fed up with me.”

“Fed up?” I asked.

“Mrs. Beyer docked my grade because I wanted to stay inside at recess to talk with her about a project and she said I couldn’t and she needed a break from me. She said no ifs ands or buts and I said but, so she penalized my grade. Then when I tried to argue she took off a mark for every word I said. Five marks for five words, and one for the but—don’t even say it, Chris.”

Chris was talking with Tristan and Rain. “You’re so self-important you think I’m listening to you?”

Kenzie smiled, rolling her eyes a bit.

“English, then?” Sveta asked.

“It takes me the longest,” Kenzie said.

Sveta looked at me. “How were you in English?”

“B minus or thereabouts,” I said. “I did better with the courses I took at the hospital than I did in high school.”

“How come?”

“I write good papers and I’m good with themes and symbolism, but the classes I took in high school spent so long on each thing I felt like my brain was turning inside out with boredom. I’d start resenting the books and I sabotaged myself by not doing the related work or reading it myself. Don’t do that, Kenzie.”

“I do well in English, even with the parts we sit on forever,” Sveta said. “I’ll take point in helping Kenzie, you help?”

“Sure,” I said.

My role ended up being even more backseat than that. Sveta had read the book, and I hadn’t. I stood back, watching, glanced back at the others, where the three boys were talking video games, which they had been doing since before Kenzie had started on her homework, and I rolled my eyes.

Rain stepped away from the conversation. Grabbing a marker from the packet, he wrote ‘Rain’ at the top corner of his whiteboard.

Below that, he wrote, ‘names’, followed by ‘Bracer’, ‘Clasp’, and ‘Pinch’.

I approached, looking.

“No homework?” I asked.

“I like to do it late. My family mostly leaves me alone while I’m doing it, and I get to tire out my brain and distract myself from what sleeping actually involves. I can go straight from that to bed.”

I nodded. “Sounds like you have a system then. If you ever need help with studying, I’m happy to help.”

“I’m a pretty crummy student, but I get by. I think I’ll be okay.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I can’t see myself doing anything that leans too heavily on the school thing anyway.”

“You’d be surprised at how it comes into play,” I said.