ROSIE, SIMON, AND I sat at the table farthest away from the food—and farthest away from everybody else. Lunch was grilled cheese, tater tots, apple slices, and a chocolate chip cookie.

I counted my tater tots. There were eleven. So I gave Simon three. I like to eat warm things in even numbers—and never double digits. So, for tater tots, I could eat two, four, six, or eight. And I was hungry, so I chose eight.

I eat even numbers for cold things too. But double digits doesn’t matter for cold things. I had seven apple slices and I gave one to Rosie.

I had been putting some of my food on Rosie’s and Simon’s trays for a couple of years now, so they barely even noticed.

“Anybody come up with a plan to count the Skittles?” I asked in a low voice. It wasn’t quite a whisper. There wasn’t anyone around us.

“Not yet,” Rosie answered.

“I thought of something,” Simon said. “It’s kind of a bad idea though, I think.”

“There are no bad ideas,” Rosie said.

“Okay, here goes,” Simon said after that encouragement.

When Simon talks about something he’s excited about, it can be kind of strange. He tilts his head a bit to the left and gets this glazed look in his eyes. Once he gets going, he talks faster and faster—and it’s hard for him to stop.

“We need to get Principal Shelton out of her office,” Simon began after tilting his head and getting that look in his eyes. “And I was thinking there must be a reason why she has all those Skittles on her desk. She must love Skittles. I mean, she doesn’t have Tootsie Rolls or Nerds or Sour Patch Kids on her desk, right?”

“Right,” Rosie said slowly. She sounded a little suspicious.

“She loves Skittles,” Simon repeated. “So, we go to the store after school and buy a pack of Skittles. Then we tear it open real careful like. When we get the pack open, we slip in a golden ticket. You know, like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We can design it on my mom’s computer and print it out. We have a color printer. After we insert the ticket, we glue the Skittles packet back up and then put it on her desk the next day.”

“What’s the ticket say?” I asked.

Simon told us proudly.

“Then when she leaves, the hard part’s done,” he said. “With her office empty, Molly just needs to sneak in. You know, through the window or the heating vents or whatever. Dump out the Skittles and start counting. Easy stuff.”

“Umm, Simon,” Rosie said slowly. “You know how I said there are no bad ideas?”

“Yeah,” he answered as he untilted his head.

Rosie giggled. “That’s sort of a bad idea.”

“Yeah,” Simon said. His feelings weren’t hurt or anything. “I know. I just thought I’d throw it out there. Get the conversation started. I don’t think she’d ever fall for it.”

“But you’re right about a lot of stuff,” I said. I didn’t want Simon to feel discouraged. “I need to get into her office—and get her out of it.”

Then the bell rang.

“Does one of you want my chocolate chip cookie?” I asked.

“Don’t you want it?” Rosie replied.

“No,” I said and shook my head. “It’s impossible to tell how many chocolate chips are inside.”

“Oh, right,” Rosie said. “I forgot. I’ll take it if Simon doesn’t want it.”

Simon said he was full.

“We can talk about the plan after school,” I said as I put my cookie on Rosie’s tray. Then I reached across the table and grabbed Rosie’s left hand and Simon’s right hand. “We have to come up with something. I have to get those Skittles out of my head.”