“As a friend, I’m telling you to leave it alone.”
“But …”
“Shouldn’t you be focused on not obsessing if your answers aren’t exactly right?” I asked to distract him.
Dare had complained that Ms. Lowden rounded her calculations to a greater extent than he did. It didn’t matter that the little brainiac also rounded. He just went a few more decimal places deeper, so his answers sometimes differed from hers by a small margin. Dare still didn’t agree that the ‘right’ answer was the one closest to what he got. Hence, he stressed.
“But if it’s wrong …”
“Buddy, I love you like a brother, but you have to understand that Ms. Lowden doesn’t care. She already told you to pick the best one and write your answer down to show your work. We’ve talked about this,” I said, getting a little frustrated.
At times like this, I really missed Brook. She would tell him the same thing, and he would accept it.
“But …”
I held up my finger and called Brook. Surprisingly, she answered.
“What’s up?” she asked to answer her phone.
The background noise said she was between classes.
“Tell Dare to pick the closest answer. We have a calculus test in an hour. If he gets one wrong because he’s being hardheaded and then cries about it, I might have to do something evil to him,” I said.
Then I handed him the phone.
“Hey … sure … Hey, David said that he could snap his fingers, and you’d date me … Oh … Yeah, here he is,” Dare said and handed me the phone.
“It sounds like you have your hands full,” Brook said.
“I don’t really know what to say about him right now,” I said as I gave him the stink eye.
“Just give him a hug from me … and not a bear hug, a nice one … and tell him everything will be okay with his test today.”
In the background, her bell rang.
“Gotta go,” she said and hung up on me.
I gave Dare a hug. He stiffened, worried I might be acting like a bully, but relaxed when I didn’t try to crush him. Not that I ever had; he was just skittish about stuff like that.
“Brook said everything will be okay today and to listen to me,” I said.
“She didn’t say the last part,” Mr. Smarty Pants shot back.
“Maybe, but you should.”
He waved me off as our bell rang.
“I’ll see you in an hour. And quit stressing out. If I end up with a better grade than you, it won’t be the end of the world,” I teased.
His look of disbelief that I might get a better grade made my day.
◊◊◊
At lunch, Dare was comparing notes with Gina and me about the AP Calculus test.
“What did you get for number eight?”
“587,” I answered.
Gina shook her head.
“You made a significant-digit mistake on that one. I almost did the same, but caught it. The correct answer is 5.87,” Gina said, and Dare nodded solemnly.
“Dang it!” I complained.
According to these two, I’d missed half the answers on the first eight questions.
“Did you study?” Dare asked.
I was being played and quickly realized who was responsible … Brook! She and Gina were helping Dare get some back on me for teasing him. I looked over at Cassidy, and she suddenly appeared very interested in the mystery meat surprise we were having for lunch.
This was big. Darius Rossetti was pulling a prank on me. It was one thing for him to quip about what he observed at lunch. Most of the time, he was just calling it as he saw it, with no idea he was being funny. But now Dare was actually punking me. Me, the guy who stood up for him. It made me suddenly proud of my little misfit. This was a big step toward him fitting in and no longer being afraid of his own shadow.
What I shouldn’t do was reveal that I’d figured it out. Dare needed to have his big moment pulling one over on me. Fortunately, I was an actor.
I sighed.
“I must have taken this too lightly. Instead of worrying about academics, I was focused on getting ready for baseball and lost sight of the importance of a good education. I hate to imagine what my mother will do to me. She’ll most likely ground me for the rest of the semester,” I all but moaned.
“This will probably make Gina valedictorian,” Dare added sadly.
Brook Davis was dead to me. That was the little touch that sold it. Darius would never have been that mean to me on his own. I looked over at Cassidy and spotted her phone on the table. I’d bet anything that Brook was listening in.
“That’s okay. Gina will give a great speech at graduation,” I said, and almost laughed when Gina flinched.
I suspected that she’d tanked PE so that she wouldn’t have to give the speech. While she loved to hear the sound of her own voice, she didn’t like to speak in public. Gina always seemed to find a way out of doing that. I’d figured that out when we had a group project, and she’d volunteered to do all the work if someone else would present it.
I slapped both my hands on the table, startling everyone.
