“Good thought.” She consults her phone. “There’s a road just before the paved part of Marie Drive starts. It goes over the train tracks and ends at Brooke Street. We know how to get home from there.”

“But what if that’s the way they go?” I say.

We turn onto Barn Lane, another unpaved road. Unfortunately, the map on Skylar’s phone doesn’t mention the hills that stretch ahead of us. Or the fields with no trees and no shade, just cows watching us pedal past.

It’s much longer than the way we came. We’re hot and tired and irritable to the point where we argue about everything. Skylar says she wants a Coke, I say Pepsi’s better. I say I love honeysuckle, Skylar says it’s an invasive weed, and so on and on. By the time we get home, we’re barely speaking to each other.

It’s after five, and Mom’s car is in the driveway. Skylar slings her bike down on her lawn beside Rob’s dirt bike and goes inside her house without waving goodbye. Just as I’m getting ready to do the same with my bike, Mom pops out the front door.

“Stop right there and put your bike away properly,” she says. “Do you want someone to steal it?”

I’m way too tired to argue. She sounds crosser than usual, like she’s had a bad day at the bank. Or got caught in heavy traffic on the way home.

I pick up my bike and walk it to the garage. There are times when I wish Mom was more like Skylar’s mom. Ms. Freeman is so casual about stuff. She doesn’t care where the bikes are, as long as they’re in the yard. It’s the same inside. Clothes, books, and junk all over the place. Dust balls under the beds big enough to swallow a cat. Unwashed dishes in the sink. Nobody nagging you to pick this up and put that where it belongs. Ms. Freeman doesn’t have proper places. Things belong where you leave them.

Skylar doesn’t even make her bed. Why should she? She’d just have to make it again the next day. Unproductive use of time, she says.

It’s a wonder Ms. Freeman and Mom are friends. Maybe opposites really do attract. Or maybe they bonded because they’re both single moms. Who knows how adult minds work?

The second I come inside, Mom says, “Where have you been? I expect you to be here when I come home.”

I ask myself, What would Skylar do? Without looking at Mom, I say, “I’m sorry. We were at the park watching some kids play baseball, and we forgot the time.”