15

JOON CALLS RIGHT before dinner that night.

“Stan?” he says. “I’m sorry about Saturday.”

My shoulders relax for the first time in days. I take a deep breath. “Whoa. Me too! I’m so glad you called. It’s just—”

“Yeah. It’s just, you know, I’ve been thinking. Really thinking. About the Quest.”

I hold my breath.

“Maybe it’s better if just Dylan and I enter it.”

I freeze. Time stops.

“—I mean, you’re great at the trivia, Stan,” he goes on. “We all know that. Really amazing at trivia, and thanks for helping me with all those charts and stuff.” Joon’s words are coming out in a rush. “But let’s face it. You’d never survive the day downtown. It’s too much for you, right?”

My heart hammers. My voice cracks. “But—it’s Trivia Quest! You need me to win!”

“Yeah, well,” Joon says softly. “I also just want to have fun!”

My whole world stops. Goes silent. “I’m fun!” I say, but it comes out as a croak. “Name one time I wasn’t fun.”

“One time?” Joon actually laughs. “Just one? How about, for starters, the school dance last month?”

“What did I do?” I whisper.

“You complained the music was too loud—”

“It was!”

“—So we went outside to get away from it, and then Kyle and Dylan followed us, and we wanted to have a rolling race down the back hill in those empty garbage pails. Remember?”

“Filthy garbage cans, dude. That was dangerous.”

“You told on us!”

“Well, the chaperones asked where you went! What was I gonna do, lie? And I was worried. You could have gotten hurt!”

“See? That’s what I mean. Why couldn’t you just roll with us?”

I sputter. But I was saving him from danger!

“—And then there was last year, when I explained to you who likes who. And you turned it into a flow chart.”

I groan.

“—With arrows and boxes, and, like, ten different colors, to explain what girl liked what boy. And everybody saw it, and some girls cried. You made girls cry, dude!”

My insides are curdling with humiliation. My face is on fire. “Okay, I agree. That was really stupid, I know.”

“Stanley. Come on. We’re at Peavey now. You have to learn how to handle stuff.”

First Calvin. Now Joon? I clench my hands, jump up, and suddenly I’m shouting back at him. “I can handle stuff! You have no idea!” My heart is pounding. “And you know what? You stink at being a friend! And you know what else? I can do the Trivia Quest all by myself, Joon! And win it, too! I don’t need you! In fact, you’d hold me back! I’m going to enter it and beat you! So there!”

“FINE!”

“FINE!” I slam down the phone and listen to the blood pound, pound, pound in my ears.

When the waves of outrage finally stop crashing, a super-heavy sadness drifts down and settles over me.

I wish John Lockdown were real. If he were here, right now, maybe he could weave some kind of magic power over me and Joon, and make things go back to how they used to be. Before Peavey.

But John Lockdown doesn’t exist. And we’re not younger. We’re older. And I’m all out of ideas how to fix this mess.

I guess from now on, as to Joon and me? We’re done.

And another thing:

I think I’m stuck entering the Trivia Quest.