CHAPTER 15
5:57 A.M. WHEN MY EYES OPEN, I CAN tell it’s still dark outside by the super-dark greenish-blue color of our room. It doesn’t get that much light even when the sun is out because of all the stuff DeShawn and Markus have piled up against the walls next to their beds. Usually there’s just enough light coming in to let me know it’s morning, though. I clutch my chest, feeling yanked out of my sleep by a vision that I thought was only happening to the dream version of me. I feel goose bumps pop up all over me and pull the covers back over my head to go back asleep. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not today, Simon. Not today. I turn over to my stomach and squeeze my eyes back shut, replaying yesterday, hoping I doze off into a happier dream. A dream where I don’t mess anything up and I’m celebrating with my homies. As my eyelids get heavy, I see our parents surrounding me, Maria, and C.J. while we inhale the heaps of food Moms brought out especially made for us. I see myself sitting next to my two best friends feeling happy but tired after all the talking and questions, making sure we asked everybody for help. It all went so fast I don’t even remember holding the notebook after all that. Guard this with your life.… We can’t mess…
7:04 a.m. Moms’ fist against the door yanks me out of my sleep, and when I see the time glowing from Markus’s alarm clock across the room, I know she let us sleep in. Four extra minutes is big for Moms on a Monday. When I’m out of the bathroom and dressed, I walk into the kitchen to see a stack of pancakes on the kitchen counter waiting for me next to Dad, and I shrug off the bad dream I woke up from earlier. Yesterday was perfect and Dad made breakfast, so it’s a perfect morning, too.
“Rise and shine.” Dad clears his newspapers off the counter to make space for me and goes to turn on the TV while I sit down. “How you feeling, man?”
“Hungry,” I tell him. It’s the truth. Cereal for dinner is good and all, but my stomach feels way too empty, like everything I ate yesterday went right through me. Maybe this explains the way Aaron eats before and after his games. I fold a pancake in half like a taco and stuff a huge chunk of it into my mouth.
“Sounds about right,” Dad says from behind me, keeping it extra short. One of my favorite parts about Dad making breakfast is how he knows when I want to talk and when we don’t need to. Plus, he knows I’ve been eating pancakes like this since I was like five and there’s no point in tryna rap me up with a mouth full of pancake. Besides, even though I’m way bigger than I was when I started eating them like this, everybody still gets scared that I might choke, so they’ve stopped distracting me while I eat. They need to relax, though. I’m eleven, a whole professional.
Dad flips the channel with his newspaper spread across the coffee table while I continue stuffing my face and watching the clock for when Maria and Ms. Estelle will be getting here. “Thanks, Dad,” I say as he comes back into the kitchen to sit back at the counter. I rinse my plate and put it in the sink.
“A whole lotta people came out yesterday, huh?”
“I’ve never seen that many people at the shelter before!”
“Had to be at least a hundred people up in there, for sure,” he says.
“For real?!”
“Oh yeah, for sure. You count all them signatures yet? That’ll tell you.”
The feeling I woke up with, thinking it was a dream, comes back strong, and all of a sudden I’m extra woozy like the room just got done spinning. Trying not to look as freaked out by the small thought that won’t go away, I speed-walk back to my room. Once past Dad’s view I run to the side of my bed, where I tossed my backpack last night. I fall onto my knees and yank it open, pushing things aside, then dumping everything on the floor when that starts to take too long. A notebook falls out onto the floor and I almost cry when I flip it over and see the cover marked MATH. I look back into my empty backpack and turn it over, shaking it as hard as I can. This can’t be right. It’s not right. Nope, nope, nope. I’m just looking in the wrong place is all.
“What are you doing?” Markus asks in the way people ask if they think you look stupid. I look up for a second, then keep searching. DeShawn walks out of the room and I hear him laughing all the way to the bathroom. I’m definitely looking in the wrong place. I probably left it on the couch when we got home, yes! It’s in the living room, duh. That’s probably why Dad asked me if I counted yet because he probably counted. Exactly.
Dad appears in the doorway. “Did you hear me, son? Did you count ’em yet? Or are y’all waiting to do that after school today? I’m ready to see the numbers!” He’s rubbing his hands together, smiling like he knows he has a winning lottery ticket and he’s just waiting for it to be announced on TV.
7:40 a.m. I swear this is the cleanest I’ve ever seen the living room, the couch, the coffee table, and the kitchen counter be in my whole life. Not even Dad’s newspaper is left out. And it’s so hot in here. Why is it so freaking HOT?! It’s supposed to be fall! I start to pull at my T-shirt collar to get some air but no amount of fanning does anything. I feel sweat starting to drip down my neck to my stomach and am moving too quick around the living room, lifting couch cushions, remote controls, and shoes to notice Dad has followed me back out of my room and has been watching me from the kitchen counter this whole time. I think the room really is spinning this time and sit down before I end up putting Saturday’s chin dive on repeat.
OKAY, SIMON—FOCUS, FOCUS. 
USE A LITTLE MAGIC, HOCUS-POCUS!
THINK FOR A SECOND… OKAY, GO LOOK!
ABRACADABRA! WHERE IS THAT NOTEBOOK?!
IT MUST BE IN THE FREEZER, OR WAS IT IN THE STOVE?
THE DRESSER? THE SHOWER? IT’S PROLLY ONE OF THOSE! 
HOLD UP A SECOND, I KNOW WHERE I LEFT IT!
ON TOP OF THE ROOF! THAT’S RIGHT, I GUESSED IT!
I THINK… I HOPE… I BEG… I PRAY!
YOU DIDN’T LOSE THE NOTEBOOK, SI, THERE’S NO WAY! 
THE D.O.G. WOULD NEVER DO A THING LIKE THAT
AND MESS UP MARIA’S PLANS TO GET THE MONEY BACK.
RIGHT?
WRONG! 
WOOF!
“What’s goin’ on, Si?” I hear Dad say. He comes into focus through my fists that I’m now using to rub my eyes. When this doesn’t stop the room from spinning, I close my eyes and give up. Tears start falling down the sides of face, into my ears, and down my neck. I can’t get myself to answer him. I can’t get myself to tell Dad that I can’t find the notebook with all my signatures in it. The one Maria warned me to guard with my life that I ended up losing anyway. I can’t say any of those words to him cuz it would mean I really ruined things and kids at Booker T. won’t have a chance at getting our clubs back because of me.
“We have to find it, Dad. We just have to or Maria’s going to hate me!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, son. That’s one of your best friends. She could never do anything like that.”
Dad doesn’t ask any more questions after I say that. He takes out his cell phone, dials a number, and walks into the kitchen. The doorbell rings. The clock on the wall says it’s 7:51. Maybe if I just sit here quietly they’ll go away. Maybe Dad saw it and he’s just waiting for me to calm down before he gives it back to me. Maybe if I wish hard enough it’ll stop being Monday morning altogether. I squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I can and open them back up as Dad walks back into the living room and sits down on the couch. Feels like the same day to me. The doorbell rings. And Maria and Ms. Estelle are outside.
I use the bottom of my shirt to dry my face while Dad tells me he called the shelter. That Ms. Wanda looked around the shelter dining hall for the notebook but it’s nowhere to be found.