Moses’s sister picks us up. She has hair braided tightly along her scalp and then a ponytail of braids. I move the big stack of schoolbooks on the backseat and sit down.

“You’re Liam, right?” she asks.

I nod.

“I’m Jada. Moses’s favorite sister.” She grins.

Moses rolls his eyes.

“Where do you live?” she asks when we’re buckled in.

“Oh, uh, yeah…just drop me off at, you know, Camino.”

“It’s raining. Don’t you want me to drive you home?” she asks.

“No, I, um, want to practice my, you know, sprints,” I say lamely.

“Okay.” She shrugs.

“Your sprints…really?” Moses whispers.

“Uh-huh,” I say, but I don’t meet his eyes. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m lying.

After they drop me off, I watch them turn up Rialto toward the fancy houses with the big lawns with trampolines and riding lawn mowers.

When I pull out my phone, there’s a string of texts from Dodge. D blew up microwave. At my house. Meet there.

It is raining, so I half run the rest of the way to Dodge’s house.

I’m sopping wet when I get there. Dakota is sitting on the front porch with Cupcake. “What did you do?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“How’d the microwave blow up if you did nothing? Mom made you a list of what you aren’t supposed to put in there. It’s taped to the door.”

“I know…I’ve read it a billion times.”

“Yeah, so why did you blow the thing up?”

“I didn’t put anything in there. Mom didn’t put ‘nothing’ on the list.”

“Why’d you run the microwave with nothing inside?”

She juts out her chin. “I thought it might lead to an important discovery. I only have two days until the maker fair projects are due. I have to let my mind run free.”

I sigh. “Does Torpse know?”

She shakes her head. “The microwave is Mom’s.”

“That’s good, but couldn’t you google putting nothing in the microwave to find out what would happen? Why did you have to do it?”

“Mrs. Johnson says you need to think, not just google answers.”

Cupcake’s leash is tied to a lawn gnome. She paws her Tupperware water dish, flipping it over.

Then she dives down the porch stairs, pulling the gnome behind her.

She pokes her nose under a hedge and comes out with a sandwich.

I try to get it out of her mouth, but she gulps it down in one bite.

“Oh, great.” I untie her leash from the gnome and set it back up where it was.

Dodge sees me and comes out. “How was tennis?” he asks.

“Okay,” I say.

“Crash said if it doesn’t rain, he’d hit with us tomorrow.”

“Excellent,” I say as my phone starts vibrating. I look at the text. It’s from Mom. Come home.

I pull Cupcake away from wet grass she doesn’t want to stop sniffing and we head home. Mom is out front sweeping.

Mom’s face is dirty and sweaty. Her black pants are covered in dog hair and her ponytail droops.

“Mom, can you come to maker fair day on Thursday?” Dakota is jumping up and down.

“What time?”

“Three.”

Mom nods. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on.” She smiles. When we walk down the stairs to our apartment, we see the big carpet-cleaning machine is back. “Don’t tell Mom Cupcake ate that sandwich,” Dakota whispers.

“If I were to, you know, get in trouble before then…” Dakota’s voice gets small. “Will you still come?”

Mom’s eyebrows rise. “I’m knackered, Dakota. Please don’t tell me…”

Dakota scratches at her neck. “I might have made a teeny mistake.”

Mom sighs.

“It was nothing, but then it turned into something,” Dakota says. “A big something.”

“What is it?”

“I blew up the microwave—but I didn’t put anything in it.”

Mom frowns. “I saw that. But it was on its last legs, and even so it shouldn’t blow up if you run it empty.”

Dakota perks up. “I know, right?”

Mom nods. “I’ll check it out. Do you want to ask your dad to the maker fair?”

Dakota looks at Mom, and then she looks at me. She shakes her head. “Science is for girls, Kimberly.”

“Oh really.” Mom grins.

Dakota nods. “You can tell him when I win, though. Then I’ll have so much money I can buy a new microwave.” She runs into her room and closes the door.