A bright red plastic chair sat in the hallway outside the door of the principal’s office. This chair was known as the Hot Seat, and at nine-fifteen on a Tuesday morning, Alec Spencer was in it.

During his years at Bald Ridge Elementary School, Alec had visited the Hot Seat a lot—he had lost count somewhere in the middle of fifth grade. This morning’s visit was the very first time he’d been sent to the principal’s office during sixth grade…except this was also the very first day of school, so Alec had been a sixth grader for less than forty-five minutes.

A kid could end up in the Hot Seat at least a hundred different ways, most of them pretty standard: talking back to a teacher, bullying or shoving or punching, throwing food in the cafeteria—stuff like that.

But Alec was a special case. Every time he had landed in the Hot Seat, he had been caught doing something that teachers usually liked: reading. It wasn’t about what he was reading or how he was reading—it was always because of where and when he was reading.

Maybe his mom and dad were to blame for spending all those hours reading to him when he was little. Or maybe The Sailor Dog was to blame, or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or possibly The Cat in the Hat. But there was no doubt that Alec had loved books from the get-go. Once he found a beginning, he had to get to the middle, because the middle always led to the end of the story. And no matter what, Alec had to know what happened next.

Today’s situation was a perfect example. Just twenty minutes earlier, Alec had been in first-period art class, and Ms. Boden had passed out paper and pencils to everyone. Then she said, “I want each of you to make a quick sketch of this bowl of apples, and don’t put your name on your paper. In five minutes I’m going to collect the sketches and tape them up on the wall, and then we’re going to talk about what we see. All right? Please begin.”

From across the art room, Alec had looked like he was hunched over his paper, hard at work. But when Ms. Boden got closer, she had discovered that Alec was hunched over a book, reading—something that had happened many, many times in past years. So Ms. Boden instantly sent him off to see the principal.

The second-period bell rang, and the hallway outside the principal’s office filled up with kids—which was one of the worst parts of being in the Hot Seat. If you got sent to see Mrs. Vance, the whole school knew about it.

However, Alec wasn’t just sitting there on the Hot Seat. He was also reading. It was a book called The High King, and in his mind, Alec held a sword in his hand as he ran along beside the main character, battling to save a kingdom. The bell, the kids, the laughing, and the talking—to Alec, all that seemed like sounds coming from some TV show in another room.

But a loud voice suddenly demanded his attention.

“Hey, can you guys smell something?”

Without looking up from his book, Alec knew the voice. It belonged to Kent Blair, a kid who lived on his street, a kid who used to be a friend. These days, Kent was very popular and very annoying, and he always laughed when Alec got in trouble. Kent was also in Alec’s first-period art class, so him showing up like this? It wasn’t a coincidence.

Alec forced his eyes to stay on the page, but he could tell Kent was about five feet away, standing with two other guys. He was talking extra loudly, making a big show of sniffing the air.

“Phew! Seriously, can’t you smell that?”

One of the other guys said, “I think it’s the spaghetti. From the cafeteria.”

Kent turned slowly toward Alec and then pretended to see him for the first time. “Ohhh! Look!” He pointed. “That’s Alec Spencer on the Hot Seat! So the smell? It’s fried bookworm! Get it? Ha-ha!”

The other guys joined right in. “Oh—yeah! Fried bookworm!”

Alec looked up from his book and scowled. He was about to toss out some insults of his own, when all three guys stopped laughing and walked away—fast.

Something on his left moved, and Alec turned. It was Mrs. Vance, holding her office door open.

“You may come in now, Alec.”