I’m in kind of a daze by the last class of the day, even more than usual. It’s English. I look around for familiar faces and get a seat next to Rudy, on the far side of Aaron. Janie’s in the front, not looking at me. I have a good view of the back of her head and her neck. If we keep these seats all year, it’s going to end up driving me insane. I try to think of something else.

“You read any of the books?” I ask Rudy.

He sits up straight, pushes a finger along the bridge of his nose like he’s adjusting a pair of glasses, and says, “I did extensive research online.”

He read the summaries on Wikipedia. I let out a quick laugh.

Aaron looks over. “What?”

I let Rudy answer. “Nothing,” he says. “It’s stupid.”

“Yeah, speaking of stupid,” says Aaron. “What were you doing with the Goonies today?”

Rudy points to me, as if that explains everything. Aaron looks me in the eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “You two need to get that fixed.”

“What?” I say. As if this was just some misunderstanding or something. It’s just like him to grade Mars on a curve like that. Still, getting it fixed is exactly what I’m trying to do. Maybe he already knows.

“You heard me,” says Aaron.

I let it drop. Getting into it with him is a bad idea. If I tell Mars, it’s the same as telling Aaron. At least Mars was upfront about that, but how do I know that’s as far as it would go?

Class starts and Mr. Kibbee writes the name of our first book on the dry-erase board with a bright red marker. It’s from our reading list: Guess which one. If you bet one hundred dollars that it isn’t the one I’d read and then doubled down that it isn’t the one whose miniseries I just started, then congratulations. You are now rich.

This book is called Things Fall Apart. … Tell me about it. People start going through their bags for their copies. Not me, I wasn’t going to bring all three just to see which one he picked first.

All around me, my classmates are getting a head start on what promises to be a full year’s worth of diligent brownnosing. “This was intense!” says Edgar, dropping the book on his desk. “Seriously!” says Jason, pulling his copy out of his backpack like he’s producing a rabbit out of a hat.

Janie turns and looks at me. She knows I didn’t read this one, and since it was on the list, we won’t be given any time to now. We’ll just go straight into discussing it, and I’ll go straight into keeping my hand down and avoiding Kibbee’s eyes. She makes her eyes wide with fake surprise, like: Wow, a book from our summer reading list. Who would’ve thought?

She’s kind of being a jerk, but all I can think is how good she looks. Her eyes look lighter against her summer tan. I nod, conceding defeat, and she turns back around.

The rest of class goes as slowly as you’d expect, but eventually it crawls across the finish line. The first day of school is in the books, even if I haven’t read them, and Rudy and I are heading toward the student parking lot. He’s talking rapid fire about which girls are in which of his classes. Amanda Lehane is in two of them and may or may not have gotten breast implants.

“I say yes,” he says. “What do you think?”

“Yeah, probably,” I say. “I mean, the change is pretty noticeable.”

“I guess it could just be, like, some very strategic growth.”

“Yeah, but that’s a little too strategic. What did she do, make a wish when she blew out her birthday candles?”

“Wish she’d blow out my birthday candle,” he says.

As we push through the double doors, I see Aaron’s car roll through the stop sign at the edge of the lot and accelerate smoothly up the hill toward the traffic light.

“— cost?” says Rudy.

“What?” I say. I missed the question.

“Are they expensive?” he says. “Boob jobs?”

“I think it depends,” I say.

It’s not much of an answer, but I’m about 100 percent distracted. If I’m going to tell Mars (maybe) and he’ll tell Aaron (obviously) and neither of them can be completely trusted (probably), then I’ve got to tell Rudy first.

This all sucks. I don’t like being backed into a corner any more than JR does. But Rudy can’t hear it secondhand. I owe him that. Well, more than that, but that’ll have to do. “Hey, man,” I say. “Can we, like, take the long way back, like Mill Pond maybe?”

“Sure, if the car doesn’t die,” he says. “What’s up?”