After a day of feeling like crap, it was easy for Will to convince Coach Van Beek he really felt like crap and needed to skip wrestling practice. Will didn’t have it in him to give Eloy any resistance. He’d spend the entire time pinned, and Eloy and the coaches would spend the entire time frustrated with him.

So he went home, to the waiting legs of dozens of crickets, their chirps hitting his ears like tiny cattle prods.

He wanted to fix things, but the thing to fix was him. How could he prove anything like that to Eloy?

Thinking of Eloy made Will think about Darryl. The thing was, Will wasn’t sure he wanted to fix things with Darryl. He wasn’t okay ignoring the stuff that had been said—that felt the same as saying it himself—and he couldn’t stop hearing Darryl say “Mexican” as if it were a curse word. Will could get over the ants, but he had a feeling in his chest, like Eloy had said: a fist around his heart. Will had to square things with Eloy first.

Eloy thought Will had eaten and served bugs as a joke, for entertainment, as punishment. He was right.

So to show he understood how wrong he was, Will had to eat bugs for real, like he meant it.

And the truth was, he did mean it. All that stuff he’d said during his class presentation was true. Entomophagy only seemed freaky because bugs were bugs. He’d struck out with raw stinkbug and earthworm jerky, but he didn’t like cucumbers, cream cheese, or eggplant either. The chapulines had been good, and other insects could be, too.

But he could eat them like he meant it, alone, all he wanted, and that wouldn’t prove anything to Eloy or anyone else. He had to get other people interested in eating bugs, too.

Sure, he’d gotten some people to eat grasshoppers—once, and basically on a dare. The number of grasshoppers that had been scattered underfoot in the hall was proof the interest in entomophagy went only so far and not beyond the door of Mr. Taylor’s classroom.

Simon’s online shopping spree was more proof. He didn’t buy dung beetles and a canned tarantula because he seriously thought they’d be a nice snack.

But Simon had ordered them, something that wouldn’t have occurred to him a few weeks ago. That was a start, though a start to what, Will wasn’t sure. He needed another plan.

And he needed to apologize—to a long list of people that he worried got longer by the minute.

He slumped low on the sofa, expecting the next few days to suck, and was oddly comforted when a cricket crawled from between the cushions onto his knee. Not quite Jiminy, but nice.

It sprang away when Hollie pushed open the front door.

She didn’t look much better than he did. He was surprised when she let her bag slide to the floor and slumped onto the couch beside him.

“Um, are you okay?” he asked.

She leaned her head back, eyes closed. “I can’t play in the next game.”

“What?”

“I gave Jeremy a bloody nose.”

“It was an accident.”

“But I wasn’t all that sorry.”

“He brought it on himself.”

“Yeah, well I can’t play, and they don’t want me in the concession stand, and I’m just really ready for you to be done with all this bug stuff,” she said, eyes still closed and head leaned back as if she was too tired to even look at him.

“Um,” he said again, abruptly un-tiring her.

She frowned directly at him. “What now?”

“I was thinking I needed to double down.” He explained what Eloy had said, what it had made Will think about himself and the bugs, and what he’d thought he should do next. Laying it all out, the good, the bad, and the stupid, could have been embarrassing, but since Hollie had lived with him his whole life, the spectrum on Hollie’s chart of Will’s embarrassing moments was broad, like, spanned miles broad. By the end, Will felt a hundred pounds lighter, which would be bad for wrestling but was good for his heart.

“Hmm,” Hollie said. “You might be growing up, little brother.”

He rolled his eyes. “We’re practically the same age.”

She snorted. “You’re a boy, so your maturity level is about four years behind mine, like dog years.”

“Ha-ha. Hey, there’s a cricket crawling up your ponytail.”

It took Hollie less than three seconds to figure out Will was tricking her, but by then she had whipped her head around, the ponytail looping around her neck. “So I guess you don’t want my help.”

If Hollie had a plan for what to do next, he’d owe her for the rest of his life. Not that he’d tell her that. He cleared his throat. “Uh, do you have an idea?”

She only ran a hand down her ponytail.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said as quickly as his mouth could keep up.

“You have a tournament coming up, right?” she asked.

His hopes dimmed. He did, but it was more than a week away, too long to leave things hanging. “Not until next Saturday, after Thanksgiving.”

“Perfect,” Hollie said.

Will looked at her. Did she really have a plan? Because the mere thought she did loosened the knot in his gut, and if she was messing with him . . .

“But you’ll need Mr. Herrera’s help,” she added, briefly describing the beginning of her idea.

The knot tightened up again. Mr. Herrera had forgiven Will once and far too easily in Will’s opinion, but a lot had happened since then, and who knew what Eloy had told his dad.

But both Eloy and Mr. Herrera had been on Will’s apology list before Hollie mentioned anything about their help. He’d be talking with them whether or not he had a way to prove he was sorry. Though he didn’t like the idea of saying “I’m sorry” and “Can you help me?” at the same time, it was better than a plain old sorry with nothing to back it up.

Will took a deep breath. “I’ll see if Dad can give me a ride.”