BLENDING IN

That day in art, Ms. Donatello had a question for all of us.

“How many of you have seen these ‘SAM’ drawings around school this week?” she asked.

(Awesome alert. Stand by for awesome.)

Every single hand went up. (Awesome!) And of course, I raised my hand along with everyone else, because: (1) I had seen those drawings, and (2) duh. It’s called blending in.

“Can anyone tell me the name of the painting that was depicted on the flagpole this morning?” Ms. Donatello asked next.

Nobody knew, and I sure wasn’t going to tell them. I just shrugged my shoulders like I’d never thought about it.

For a while after that, Ms. D talked about The Scream, and Edvard Munch, and then I’m not sure what else because my head was too busy exploding from the inside. I was loving every single second of this. And my cheeks were getting the workout of a lifetime, just trying not to smile.

But then after class, Ms. Donatello threw me a little curveball.

“See you Monday, Rafe. Keep setting those sights high,” she told me. “And try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

It was the kind of thing she said all the time. Except this time, there was something about the way she said it, like it was code for something else. It made me wonder if she’d been talking about SAM for a reason. Like maybe Ms. Donatello was even smarter than I thought.

Or maybe SAM wasn’t as stealthy as I thought.

Or both.

Either way, it was like I said before—why take chances? I was going to have to be more careful than ever from now on.