Monday morning, I received an email from the library. I took a deep breath and opened it. The Giver had been returned! I ran down the stairs.
“Caden returned the book! I’m not going to jail!” My family looked up from their breakfasts, and we all laughed. I finished getting ready and headed to school, nervous about what I had to do.
I met Maya at our lockers. We had messaged back and forth on Sunday, so she knew a little more about what had happened on Halloween.
“Hey,” I said. “Is Amy coming too?”
“No,” she said. “I think she’s a little freaked out about what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“You passed out and said some weird things. I told her you had a rare brain condition, but that didn’t make her feel any better.”
“What should I do?”
“I don’t know, Charlie. You can’t tell her the truth. I guess you need to be more careful about what you say and do around her.”
“Great. Be careful. Why does everyone tell me that?”
Maya shrugged. I felt a lump form in my throat as we walked to Mr. Goshen’s classroom. My dad told me not to worry, but I couldn’t help it. The door was open, but both of us paused before walking into the room. I saw him sitting at his desk.
“Here goes nothing,” I said. I walked in and Maya followed me to his desk. “Mr. Goshen, can you help us with this assignment? I know it’s not due until Wednesday, but we want to do well on it.”
“I can’t do it for you, but if you have some specific questions, I can answer those.” He motioned to the table at the front of the room. We sat in the empty chairs and he pulled up his chair.
“I’m confused about dependent clauses,” I said.
“And we both aren’t sure how to support our responses with quotes from the book,” Maya added.
“I can help you with both of those questions. Let’s start with Charlie’s question first.”
Maya and I spent the next fifteen minutes with Mr. Goshen and left feeling much more confident of our ability to do well in his class. He still wasn’t the friendliest teacher, but I guess that didn’t matter if we were learning.
“Do you really think Caden earned his A?” Maya asked on our way to our lockers.
“Yes. I saw a memory of him asking for help from Mr. Goshen. Mr. Goshen was Caden’s football coach a few years ago.”
“So Caden wasn’t afraid to ask him for help,” Maya said.
“Yeah, and guess what? Caden returned my book to the library,” I told Maya. “Maybe he doesn’t hate me after all.”
“He hasn’t done anything really mean to you lately.”
“Except when he shoved me in the corn maze.”
“What? I didn’t know that happened.”
“I forgot you didn’t know that. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not his fault he’s a bully.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw something else in Mr. Goshen’s head. I don’t think we know the whole story about Caden.”
“Oh,” Maya said.
Amy walked over, interrupting our conversation.
“Are you talking about spaghetti or boogers again, Charlie?” Amy asked. I chuckled.
“Are you feeling better?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m fine,” I said with a smile.
“Are you sure? I was …” She looked to the floor, and I could tell she was going to say scared or worried.
“Seriously, I’m fine,” I said.
“Maya told me about your condition. Does that happen a lot?”
“Nope. Hopefully never again.”
“Good,” she said. “Did you hear about the house that handed out popcorn bags on Halloween?” Amy asked.
“Where was that?” I asked.
“Hunter Woods?” she said.
“Don’t you live on Hunter Woods?” Maya asked me.
I shook my head no. She got the hint.
The bell rang.
“See you guys later,” Amy said. Maya and I walked to math class.
“That was your house, wasn’t it?” Maya asked.
“Yep. We forgot to get candy, and that is all we had.”
“You had enough popcorn to hand out to all the trick-or-treaters?”
“We like popcorn a lot.”
“Popped or unpopped?”
“Unpopped.”
“Your family is hopeless!” We laughed and took our seats, ready for another day at Silver Lake Middle School.
I was the alien in the room, but I didn’t feel like an outcast anymore. The announcements came on and I listened to the lunch menu and events happening for the week. I’d almost forgotten! Basketball tryouts were in two days! My heart beat faster with excitement about playing basketball. Then Principal Stevens started talking, and all the excitement I felt vanished. I needed to figure out who he was. It couldn’t wait any longer.
If you enjoyed this book, then you will want to hear Maya’s side of the story as she meets Charlie and learns he is an alien. Sign up for my email list to receive your free copy of Maya’s Diary. Plus, my list gets sneak peeks of new books, special sales, and access to giveaways. Click here to sign up or visit kristenotte.com
I’m excited about this series, so I hope you will follow along with Charlie’s journey on Earth in book three of the series as he tries to solve the principal problem!