“Hmph!” This sound was even more ambiguous than the previous one. Maybe he was annoyed that I had used so many different highlighters. Mr. McRyan had a lot of pet peeves, which he probably had built up over many, many years of teaching. He only liked blue ballpoint pens, not black, and he got really angry if we said like too many times in class.

  Finally, Mr. McRyan flipped to the end of the notebook. This was where I kept all the weekly quizzes. I peeked over his shoulder and tried not to gasp. Somehow, I had completely missed a quiz with a missing piece at the bottom. The missing piece was in the exact shape of a dog bite, a Phineas-shaped bite, to be specific.

  How could Phineas have been so stupid? How could I have been so stupid? This was probably the sort of thing Mr. McRyan failed people for. I closed my eyes and waited for his verdict.

  “Chloe,” said Mr. McRyan. “I don’t do this very often …”

  But I am going to give you an F-minus, my little voice helpfully filled in.

  “But I believe this notebook is worthy of an A-minus,” finished Mr. McRyan.

  “What?” The class gasped along with me. Technically, we were not supposed to listen to one another’s grades, but we couldn’t help it.

  “Oh, I know, it’s probably an A.” Mr. McRyan chuckled. “But you have to have something to work for in the second semester.” He handed me my notebook and winked.

  “Thank you,” I breathed. As I walked back to my seat, people began sticking out their hands, asking to see the notebook, but I had crossed my arms over it, not daring to let go just yet.

  “Did you really … ?” Carly began to ask. But before she could get out the rest of the question, a loud squawking sound filled the room, and an orange light began to flash on and off. We were having a fire drill.

  “Leave your things. We’re going to parking lot C to line up,” said Mr. McRyan. “Let’s go.”

  The thing about fire drills is that, chances are, it’s just that—it’s practice. But there’s always a tiny part of my brain that wonders if it’s a real emergency. A disaster.

  “I thought I smelled smoke,” whispered Carly. We weren’t supposed to be talking, but everyone did. “Did you smell smoke? Or something kind of chemical-y?”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “But maybe I missed it.”

  “The kids coming out of the gym said the air was hazy in the locker room,” said Ryan.

  “That’s from the BO,” joked Laurel.

  “Straight line, face away from the building,” said Mr. McRyan. “No talking.” We were supposed to face away from the building in case it exploded, which never made sense to me. Wouldn’t we want to see if any debris was coming our way so we could duck?

  My insides felt like they were twisting tighter and tighter. I wanted to know if this was an emergency or not. Maybe I should call my dad so he wouldn’t worry, even though we weren’t supposed to use our phones during school hours. I hunched over. My stomach hurt.

  “It’s just a fire drill.” A class had lined up next to ours, and Henry had ended up next to me.

  “How do you know that for sure?” I asked.

  Henry scanned the throngs of kids and teachers around us. “I mean … it’s not a field trip.”

  “No, I mean how do you know it’s a drill, and not a real emergency?” I asked.

  “Okay, so let’s assume it’s the worst-case scenario, and there is a real fire,” said Henry. “Everyone is out of the building. Look, Mrs. Kirby has even brought out Linguini and Bucatini.” Mrs. Kirby was one of the science teachers. Linguini and Bucatini were snakes. “So, the people are safe, which is the most important thing.” Henry turned and studied the building, even though we were supposed to face away from it. “I see Ms. Valdez, the vice principal. She seems pretty relaxed, which is not her normal state. Look, she’s smiling. I think we’re okay.” There was something about the way Henry talked that felt nice, like a warm cup of hot cocoa. Or taro milk tea.

  “Maybe Ms. Valdez is one of those people who gets calmer in an emergency,” I said. My mom was like that. Everyone in the ER loved her because she never shouted. She just knew what to do.

  “Okay, kids, we’re going back in!” Mrs. Alamantia walked by and winked at me. She put her arm up in the air. “Head back in, please! No running!”

  “See?” said Henry. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “You were right … this time …” I said. Henry gave me his one-dimple smile as his class moved away. As we walked back into the building, I realized I was smiling, too.

  Mr. McRyan told us to pack up and then wait for the announcement that we could go to the next class. We were going to skip sixth period and go straight to seventh. He told us he didn’t want a “brouhaha,” which is a word that I have only ever heard Mr. McRyan say.

  Carly noticed before me. She pointed to the empty spot in front of my seat and said, “Did you take your notebook with you?”

  “What? No!” I looked around my seat, on the floor, even in my backpack, though I was pretty sure I had not put it away.

  I raised my hand. “Mr. McRyan, my notebook …” An announcement came over the PA, drowning out my voice. I raised my hand frantically.

  “Chloe, we can deal with it tomorrow,” said Mr. McRyan. “The next class is getting ready to come in.”

  “My notebook …” I said desperately.

  “It can wait until tomorrow,” said Mr. McRyan firmly.

  Maybe in all the confusion someone had taken my notebook by accident. Part of me wanted to throw myself across the door and ask to check everyone’s bags. Insist on finding my notebook.

  But that would be making a scene. A mess.

  I was one of the last kids in the classroom to leave. And the only one to leave without my notebook.

  “So you got an A-minus on Mr. McRyan’s notebook check and someone stole it?” asked Sabrina after school.

  “I don’t think someone stole it,” I said, shocked that she had used that word. “Someone must have taken it by accident.”

  “Come on,” said Sabrina. “You have that crazy color scheme. How many people have bright yellow notebooks? Your notebook was stolen.” I nodded my head, reluctantly. Sabrina was right.

  “I tried to tell Mr. McRyan, but he said it had to wait until tomorrow.” I didn’t say the rest. I should have said something. Shouted stop and made everyone listen to me. But I couldn’t do it.

  “It was probably someone in your class. That’s pretty daring,” said Sabrina.

  “That’s what doesn’t make sense,” I said. “I’m at the end of the alphabet. Everyone else already got a grade.”

  “That notebook became an instant legend,” said Sabrina. “I mean, you got an A-minus in Mr. McRyan’s class.”

  “My next grade is going to be an F because I won’t have the notebook,” I said.

  “Oh, come on,” said Sabrina. “Even Mr. McRyan will understand. He won’t ding you for that.”

  “I’m glad you’re so certain,” I said.

  “What I don’t get is, it’s your stuff. In your handwriting, with your color coding and all that other stuff you do,” said Sabrina. “No one can try to pass that off as their own.”

  I let out a long, noisy sigh.

  Sabrina linked her arm through mine. “You know what you need?”

  “My social studies notebook?”

  Sabrina laughed. “Okay, you know what else you need? You need a boba.”

  And maybe you can see Henry! said the little voice in my head. My little voice was getting out of hand. Why should I be excited about seeing Henry?

  Henry was not working at the counter when Sabrina and I went in—not that I care, anyway, I reminded my little voice. Sabrina ordered a coconut milk tea. I didn’t know what to order. What would Henry say? What did you order when everything seemed so wrong? Finally, I picked a mango slush.

  “Mango day, huh?” asked Sabrina.

  “The color reminds me of my notebook,” I told her. “My missing notebook.” I took a sip, hoping the bright citrus flavor would cheer me up.

  Sabrina led the way to a table near a window with bamboo plants in small pots on the sill. “Oh, look, there are some kids from school!” Sabrina waved. I knew some of the kids, including Isabel and Laurel. They had been talking, but when they saw me, they went quiet and exchanged looks.

  “That’s funny,” said Sabrina.

  “What’s funny?”

  Sabrina put her drink down on the table and gestured for me to follow her. “Hi, guys,” said Sabrina. If you knew Sabrina the way I did, you’d know that this was not her sincere, friendly tone. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” said Isabel. “Just hanging out. How about you?”

  “We were celebrating Chloe’s notebook grade. Did you hear? McRyan gave her an A-minus. I think the last person who got close to that grade started Twitter or something,” said Sabrina.

  “I heard,” said Isabel. She looked at me. “Congratulations.” She turned to the rest of the group. “Clutterless Chloe, keeping things clean.” Some of the kids laughed. Isabel had called me that before, in drama, but this time I heard how mean it was.

  “Here’s the thing, though,” said Sabrina. “Someone stole Chloe’s notebook during the fire drill. I mean, who does that?” I tugged on Sabrina’s arm. She was making a mistake. Isabel wasn’t in my class; she was in the class after mine. “Sabrina,” I whispered.

  Isabel’s face became very still.

  Sabrina ignored me and took a step closer to Isabel. “Would you know anything about that, Isabel?”

  “Uh-oh,” said one of the kids.

  Isabel leaned over, unzipped her backpack, and tossed a notebook on the table. “You don’t have to be so dramatic,” she said.

  “My notebook!” I leaned over and grabbed it. I tried not to hug it in front of the other kids.

  “It was Laurel’s idea, to get me the notebook. I was going to give it back,” said Isabel sulkily. “I just wanted to look at it. With the fire drill, we have an extra day to get ready.”

  “You can’t just take stuff that doesn’t belong to you,” I said, astonished. “That’s, like, a rule from kindergarten.”

  Laurel lowered her head and mouthed, Sorry. But Isabel just shrugged. “So maybe it’s a rule for babies.”

  “It’s not!” A few other customers turned and looked at us. “It’s a rule for people.”

  “Oh, I’m kidding,” said Isabel coolly, though I doubted she meant it. “Look, my parents are really giving me a hard time about my grades. Laurel was only trying to help. I was just going to borrow your notebook, to use it as a reference. If I don’t do well, my mom says I can’t go on the Broadway trip.”

  Isabel leaned back in her chair. She was wearing a perfect white T-shirt with AMAZING written in tiny rhinestones across it, which matched her perfect white tennis shoes. Her nails were manicured into pink sparkly tips. She had everything, including, until recently, my notebook. She reached into her purse and tossed a couple of twenty-dollar bills on the table.

  “Look,” she said. “I’m happy to compensate you for your expertise. Sixty bucks for a couple of hours to look at your notebook. I know you need the money. I heard you say so.”

  For a hot second, I was tempted. Sixty dollars for something I had already done. Then my brain exploded. “No, that’s not right,” I said. “This is not something you get by throwing some money around.” Sabrina tugged on my arm. I was shouting.

  “It’s not cheating,” said Isabel. “I’ll do my own work.”

  “You can’t have it because you didn’t ask,” I said. “You can’t just take stuff.”

  Henry’s uncle appeared. “What’s going on here? You girls are causing a disturbance.”

  Isabel flicked her hand. “It’s nothing.”

  “She stole my notebook,” I said forcefully. “I was getting it back.”

  Henry’s uncle didn’t seem to care about that. “You guys have a problem, you take it outside. The Tea Palace is a quiet place.”

  I took a quick peek around the restaurant, looking for Henry. If Henry were here, he’d be able to help me explain, tell his uncle that I had been wronged.

  “If you ask your nephew, Henry …” I started.

  “We’re done,” said Isabel, picking up the money and putting it away.

  Oh, no we’re not! declared my little voice. And this time we were in agreement.

  “Not quite,” I said. I picked up Isabel’s drink—a strawberry slush with white boba—ripped off the seal, and dumped the drink over her head. The pink drink soaked her hair, dripped on her face, splotched her perfect white T-shirt.

  “Chloe!” Sabrina gasped, and then put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Isabel looked up at me in disbelief. A white boba pearl rolled over the top of her head and flew off, like a ski jumper.

  “That’s it,” said Henry’s uncle, pointing at me. “You are banned from Tea Palace!”

  “I can’t believe you did that!” exclaimed Sabrina. “I mean, Isabel totally deserved it, but I can’t believe you did it.” We were speed-walking away from Tea Palace. Everything was in a jumble. I was holding my drink, my backpack, my jacket, and my notebook, all in a messy pile. I had wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, before Henry’s uncle started yelling again.

  “Neither can I.” I felt like I had run a mile, though it was really my mind that was racing, not my heart. “Did I really just do that?” It felt like a dream.

  “You did,” said Sabrina. “Truth? It was kind of awesome.” She wanted to high-five me, but I didn’t have a free hand. Not that I felt like high-fiving.

  “Do you think Isabel’s parents are going to call my dad?”

  “Maybe,” Sabrina said. “But then you could point out that she stole your notebook, so maybe she’ll just keep quiet.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Suddenly, all I could think of was Henry, and how I wouldn’t get to see him at Tea Palace anymore. Don’t be stupid. You can still see him at school.

  But why should I care about seeing him at all?

  “I guess you’ll have to get boba without me,” I told Sabrina.

  “No way!” said Sabrina. “I’m not going to patronize some place that banned my best friend!” She put her arm around me. “B-F-F-s before B-O-B-A. But talk to Henry. Maybe he can get you reinstated or something.”

  “I dunno. His uncle is kind of a hothead.”

  “Yeah, and hotheads are the least likely to stick to their guns because they know that they say a lot of dumb things when they’re mad,” said Sabrina. “Wait a few days and then see.”

  I felt so lucky to have a best friend like Sabrina. She was so loyal and smart and funny. I decided I should tell her the truth.

  “There’s a reason why I haven’t signed up for the Broadway trip yet,” I said. “And it’s not because my dad said I had to raise the money. It’s because …” I took a breath, trying to find the right words. “Things are different now.”

  Sabrina took my backpack and drink. “I know,” she said softly. “How could it not be different?” She tipped her head so our foreheads were touching.

  “Of course. I mean, what isn’t different? But in this case, I mean money. It’s tight. I don’t want to stress my dad out by asking for money,” I said. “And since my career as a babysitter has been cut short, I’m not sure what else I can do.”

  “I could ask my pare—” started Sabrina. I didn’t let her finish.

  “No way,” I said firmly. “Look, this is the way it’s going to be. My dad and I, we’ve got to figure it out.”

  “Oh … you’re so stubborn,” grumped Sabrina. “But I get it.”

  “You won’t hate me if I can’t go on the trip?” I asked.

  “Oh, please,” said Sabrina. “No way. But you still have time.” Sabrina did not give up easily.

  “Not much,” I said. “Though now I guess I won’t be spending my money on boba.”

  Sabrina suddenly stopped walking and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “I was just thinking about Isabel,” she said.

  “And?”

  “I’ve known you for five years,” said Sabrina. “And I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you make a mess on purpose!”

  “There’s always a first time for everything,” I said. And then I had to laugh, too.

  Auntie Sue showed up on Thursday after school, driving a new red convertible. She honked the horn and I went outside.

  “Whoa!” I said. “Nice car!” I wasn’t really a car person, not like some people I knew, but still. It looked like a fun car.

  “Wait until you ride in it!” said Auntie Sue. “It’s the best!” She jumped out of the car and hugged me. “We’ll put down the top and hit the road!” Then I felt her stiffen and stand up. “Hello, Kurt.”

  Dad was standing on the front step, looking at us with his hands in his pockets. His usual smile was gone. He lifted one hand up in the air. “Hello, Sue. How are you?” he said formally.

  “I’m fine. And you?” said Aunt Sue, just as formal.

  I wished Aunt Sue and Dad would get along better. You would think that they could make each other happier with their shared memories of my mom. But instead, all they had were angry words at Mom’s funeral. Auntie Sue scolded my dad for not stopping Mom from going to work; my dad said he couldn’t make my mom stop. No one could. Because of the pandemic, Mom’s funeral had been online, with squares of sad faces filling the screen. Mom felt responsible for the people who walked through the hospital no matter the reason. Dad and Auntie Sue only stopped fighting when I begged them to stop.

  Auntie Sue and Dad made up, sort of, after that. Except they were always super polite with each other. But in a way, that was worse. They weren’t using politeness to be kind. It was like it was what they used to keep from saying something terrible.

  “I’ll have Chloe home by bedtime,” said Auntie Sue, rubbing my back. “Unless you want her sooner.”

 

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