But I did have to go to school, and Tuesday was even worse than Monday.

First I couldn’t remember which door was Mr. Peary’s, so I had to kind of wander around the hall pretending I knew where I was until I saw Jonas and followed him to the classroom. All the other sixth graders were at their bright blue and green lockers, talking and joking.

I hadn’t even tried finding my locker yet, although Mr. Peary had taken me to the office after school the day before to get me a locker number and combination. We didn’t have lockers in my old elementary school — even here they were just for the fifth and sixth graders — so I was used to carrying all my books around. What if I forgot something I needed because I left it in my locker? It seemed safer to keep it all with me.

Jonas and I were the first people in the classroom. Not even Mr. Peary was there yet. Jonas sat down at his desk and pulled out a book about whales. He didn’t say anything to me. He looked like a taller, skinnier version of Josh, if Josh ever wore glasses, which is maybe why I was stupid enough to try to talk to him.

“Hey, uh,” I said, brilliantly. Jonas looked up, and then around the room like he was trying to figure out who I was talking to.

“Uh, you like fish?” I asked. Oh, that was genius, Noah.

Jonas blinked. I pointed at the book he was reading.

“Whales aren’t fish,” he said, and went back to reading.

“I know!” I said. “I know that!” I really did. They’re mammals. Everyone knew that. “I mean, just ’cause of your notebooks and … stuff …”

He gave me a look like I was some kind of stalker. But dude, it wasn’t hard to figure out. He had a wriggly plastic purple squid hanging from a loop on his dark blue backpack. Whenever he raised his hand during science, he usually had a question about the ocean. His free reading book yesterday had a sea turtle on the cover. Maybe I noticed stuff, but it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to guess that Jonas was interested in ocean life.

Luckily I didn’t have to find out what he’d say next, because the classroom door flew open and Rory burst in. Her cheeks were pink from running and her long brown hair had fallen out of its ponytail.

“Where’s Heidi?” she demanded, shoving her hair out of her face. It was longer than I’d realized, all the way down to her waist and really straight.

Jonas and I stared at her blankly. As if either of us would know?

Rory snorted. “You guys are a big help,” she said. As she turned back to the door she stopped, backed up, and squinted at my face.

“Yikes!” she said. “What happened to you?”

I ducked my head and touched my chin, feeling like Frankenstein’s monster. “Nothing,” I muttered. “My stupid dog.” Or not-stupid-enough dog, I guess would be more accurate.

“Wicked. I’ve got one on my elbow just like that,” Rory said, pushing up the sleeve of her red T-shirt so I could see the huge scrape that went up her arm. “And over here.” She held out her other hand, where the skin on her palm was shiny and pink like it had just healed. “And let’s not even talk about my knees.”

She glanced down at the scars and scabs on her knees and shins. I hadn’t noticed them before. “This is from when I broke my leg last summer.” She pointed at a shiny scar on her left leg. “I tried to skateboard off a flight of steps.” She wrinkled her nose at the surprised face I made. “I had to! Danny dared me to!”

“I broke my arm two summers ago,” I said, showing her the fading scar. “Climbing a tree. Well, technically, falling out of a tree.”

“I was seven when I broke my arm,” Rory said proudly. “Jumped off the roof with an umbrella.”

“Nobody really does that!” I said, trying not to laugh.

“They do if their best friend has watched Mary Poppins too many times!” Rory said. She glanced over at Heidi’s desk and then at her watch. “Really it was her idea. And her umbrella, by the way. It was black and white with floppy ears so it looked like a dog’s face. I totally smashed it when I landed.”

“Don’t tell my little sister you did that,” I said. “You’ll give her ideas.”

“I have a little sister, too,” Rory said, smiling. “Well, stepsister. She’s the one who did this to my Keds.” She waved one foot to show off the highlighter scribbles.

“How old —” I started to ask, but a voice interrupted me.

“Hey Rory,” it said. It was the tall blond guy I didn’t like — Brett, if I remembered right. He strolled around Rory and rested his butt on Ella’s desk. “How is your sister? Cameron, right? Did she ever find her lunch money?”

“No!” Rory said, looking mad, but not at Brett. Which was too bad. I didn’t want to find out she was friends with this guy. “She sulked about it all weekend.”

Brett shook his hair back and smiled in a greasy way. He hadn’t even looked at me once. His butt slid over a few inches so it was nearly on my desk, slowly putting him between me and Rory.

“You know,” he said in a low voice, “I bet Avery’s been stealing other things, too.” I wondered who Avery was. There was a girl named Avery in my class back in Rochester, but I didn’t think I’d met any Averys here yet.

Rory shrugged. “Well, I’ll find out eventually. Whatever happened to it, it was really annoying. Cameron acted like a total brat to poor little Cormac all weekend.” She was a lot shorter than Brett, so she had to look up at him to talk to him. A lock of her hair drifted over her shoulder, and she picked it up and started twisting it around her finger.

For some reason, it made me kind of mad, the way she was doing that and looking up at him. I wanted her to be like, “OK, go away, Brett, Noah and I were talking.”

“Uh,” Brett said, scratching his head. “Cormac …”

“My stepbrother,” Rory said. She dropped her hair and stepped back, looking at her watch again. “Uh-oh! I better go. Miss Woodhull yells at me all the time for being late.” She hurried to the door. “ ’Bye, Nathan!” she called as she went through it.

Oh, GREAT. I’d finally had a normal conversation with someone, and she didn’t even know what my name was. What was wrong with the girls at this school?

Brett smirked at me and strolled over to his seat next to Jonas.

“Oops,” Rory said, sticking her head back in. “I mean Noah. Right? Noah?”

“Uh, yeah,” I stammered. “That’s right.”

“Next time you move, don’t confuse people like that!” she said, and vanished out the door again.

Next time I moved? Unless it was back to Rochester, I was never moving again. And if I did, I’d get some kind of radar to avoid meeting people like Heidi, who remembered your dog’s name better than your own.

A minute later, I felt bad for having that thought when Heidi bounced through the door and waved at me with a big smile.

“Wasn’t class awesome last night?” she said. “I can’t wait for Wednesday!”

Oh, I could wait for Wednesday. If it were up to me, I’d have been perfectly happy if Wednesday never came.