WHAT DO YOU SAY?

AFTER A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, I WALK INTO MR. OLSEN’S SCIENCE LAB.

Luis is nowhere.

It’s a relief. I don’t wanna see him again.

I put on my lab goggles and yawn a huge one. I figure it’ll be okay to close my eyes for a second.

One thousand and one.

I open my eyes.

I can’t fall asleep in class.

But one more long, slow blink won’t hurt anybody.

One thousand and …

The bell rings. My eyelids spring open. My cheek rests in a puddle of spit on my desk. I wipe my face and look around. I can’t see because everything is a greasy blur. A brown blob flies at my face. I realize it’s a hand. But I’m still half asleep and don’t know what’s going on. So I slap the hand away.

“Your goggles, dude.”

It’s Luis. He takes my safety goggles off and the blur goes away.

“You sleep-slobber like a hound dog, Sam.”

I wipe my mouth with my shirtsleeve as Luis helps me up and hands me a stack of papers. “Here.”

What the hell?

No freakin’ way.

He retyped the whole damn poem.

Twice this time.

One copy for him. One for me.

It must have taken him half the night to remember it all—to get it right—and poke every letter into that typewriter.

Last night it was gone … gone with the freakin’ wind.

This whole thing was over.

And now Luis is here. And the poem is back from the dead.

I don’t know what to do.

He looks at me, then looks down at the ground like he’s waiting for me to respond.

Then he says, “Sorry about last night. It won’t happen again.”