Heidi stopped laughing and covered her mouth, looking worried. “Don’t you know where you live?” she asked.
Sure I do. I live in Rochester, next door to Victor and across the street from Anjali and Josh. That’s where I’m supposed to be right now.
“We just moved here,” I said. I kicked a piece of gravel with my sneaker and Jeopardy pounced on it as it bounced away. “I start school on Monday.”
“Really?” she said. Her blue eyes went really wide, kind of like Violet’s when she’s confused (or pretending to be confused). “But school started already!”
“I know,” I said. Tell me about it. Like I’m not worried enough. It wasn’t just the schoolwork that worried me. Everyone would already know where they were sitting at lunch. Everyone would have their best friends all set already. They’d know where everything was and who was cool and who wasn’t and everybody’s names and all this stuff it would take me forever to figure out. I was definitely not looking forward to Monday.
“Well, you didn’t miss anything important,” Heidi said, rolling her eyes. “Blah blah pyramids and South American geography and whatever.”
Uh-oh. What exactly about pyramids and South American geography? We’d been doing Greek myths and long division back at my old school. I knew some South American geography, like the capitals of the countries, but nothing about, like, rivers or the tallest mountain or anything like that. Would I have to know all that stuff?
“Hey, maybe you’ll be in my class,” Heidi barreled on. She didn’t seem to notice that she was freaking me out a little bit. “Sixth grade? Westminster Elementary?”
I nodded. “Mr. Perry, I think.”
“Peary,” she said, and I felt like an idiot again. Boy, getting the teacher’s name wrong would be a terrific way to start off at my new school, wouldn’t it?
“Oh, hey!” Heidi went on, her face lighting up. “That is my class! That’s so cool! Mr. Peary is awesome!” She clapped her hands and bounced up and down. Her dog went “WOOF! WOOF!” and leaped up to plant his paws on her shoulders, and then Jeopardy got excited and tried to jump on her, too, and all three of them fell over in a big pile on the grass.
“Eeeee!” Heidi yelped as Jeopardy and Yeti both tried to lick her face. I jumped forward and grabbed Jeopardy’s collar to pull her off. It figured my dog would do something totally embarrassing to the first person I met here.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
But Heidi was laughing like crazy. She couldn’t stop laughing for a full minute, which was kind of funny and kind of odd at the same time. I wondered if maybe she was a little cuckoo herself.
Finally she sat up and gave her dog a hug. He nuzzled his nose into her neck. His head was literally bigger than hers. His big furry ears flapped as he panted and blinked at me.
“Yeah, I’m all right,” Heidi said, catching her breath. She reached to pat Jeopardy’s head, but Jeopardy ducked away and came over to sit next to me when I crouched down. I could sense the Sheltie staring at me out of the corner of my eye.
“Your dog is enormous,” I said, which wasn’t exactly brilliant conversation, but I couldn’t think of what else to say.
“Isn’t he huge?” she said, grinning. “Did you move here from Buffalo?”
I was confused for a minute, until I looked down and realized I was wearing one of my Buffalo Bills shirts. I hoped my dad didn’t think we were going to change our football loyalties just because we lived somewhere new. I would always be a Bills fan, no matter where we lived, and no matter how often they lost. They were still the best football team ever, according to me and Josh.
“Rochester,” I said, answering her question. “Close enough.” Close enough to go to at least one Bills game a month, especially when Josh’s dad had season tickets. But now we weren’t close to Buffalo at all. I probably wouldn’t get to go to another Bills game for the rest of the season. I missed it already — the stadium, the smell of the pretzels, huddling in our coats and blankets while the team played through a blizzard, arguing with Josh over who should be starting quarterback as Dad drove us home in the dark.
“You’ll like it here,” Heidi said, as if she’d read my mind. “There are lots of kids with dogs.” OK, so she hadn’t read my mind. I had enough trouble dealing with weirdo Jeopardy; I was pretty sure I’d be just as bad with other people’s dogs. And if they saw how weird my dog was, they probably wouldn’t want to be friends with me anyway.
“Some of my friends are coming now,” Heidi said, sounding excited. She checked her wrist, although there wasn’t a watch on it. “Um, sometime soon, anyway. You can meet them and all their dogs, too.”
Oh, man. I was definitely not ready for a whole bunch of strangers and dogs. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready. Unfortunately, Monday was coming no matter what I did. At least I could avoid the meeting-people part for a little while longer, though.
“Um, actually, I gotta go home,” I said. I got to my feet and brushed dirt off my jeans. Heidi had smudges of grass and dirt on her knees from rolling around with the dogs. “I still have to unpack,” I added. “My room is a mess.” That was true, anyhow.
“Oh, please,” she said, waving her hands around. “I am the queen of messy rooms. Are you sure you can’t stay?”
“Sorry,” I said. I grabbed Jeopardy and clipped her leash back on. My dog gave me this look like, Really? Already? What if I want to stay? Can I stay and you go?
Heidi looked pretty disappointed, too. I felt bad, but it was too late to be like, “OK, never mind, I’ll stay,” right? And even though she was nice, what if her friends weren’t? Or what if they thought it was weird that I was hanging out with a girl? What if they tried to pat Jeopardy and she ran away from them and they decided that I was a bad dog owner?
No, it would be hard enough to meet people; I didn’t need Jeopardy there making me look even dopier than usual.
“But, uh, it was nice to meet you,” I said to Heidi.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she said. “Good luck finding your way home!” I winced. She really did think I was an idiot.
Jeopardy tried to drag her paws, but I wrapped the leash around my hand and tugged on it so she couldn’t argue. As we walked away, Heidi called, “See you in school on Monday!”
I waved and closed the gate behind me. We were just in the nick of time. I heard voices coming up one of the paths — a boy and a girl arguing loudly about which Jonas brother is cutest (I could tell the guy was just trying to make her mad) while something yapped insistently along with them.
I pulled Jeopardy along a different path, although she really, really wanted to go say hi to the new dog. I stopped farther up the hill and looked back.
The two Hispanic kids going into the dog run looked like brother and sister. The girl had dark curls and a bright pink shirt that matched her sandals. The guy was tall with spiky black hair and long green basketball shorts. His sister was holding the dog’s leash, but he kept reaching for it as the puppy bounced around their feet and got them tangled up. The girl wouldn’t let her brother take the leash, though; she kept pushing him away and yelling, “I’VE GOT IT! DANNY, LEAVE IT! QUIT MOVING!” The puppy was tiny and white and fuzzy and seemed delighted by their pushing and shoving.
Jeopardy made a mournful noise and I looked down at her. She looked up at me with her ears pricked, like she was hoping I’d change my mind. When I didn’t head back to the dog run, her stare became a bit more accusing, like, Well, you might be hopeless, but why won’t you let me have any friends?
“Too bad, Jeopardy,” I said. I tugged her around to head out of the park. Her little paws went trot trot trot over the paved path. “Trust me, I’d love it if you could go to school for me on Monday. Think anyone would notice?”
Jeopardy let out a small huff, like she couldn’t believe how lame I was. I kind of agreed with her. It was lame to be afraid of a new school, but I couldn’t help it.
I was terrified of what would happen on Monday.
Jeop
ardy didn’t like it when she realized I was going somewhere on Monday. She barked and barked when Mom came in to wake me up, and then she followed me around the room with this worried, penetrating stare while I got dressed.
Downstairs, Violet was standing on a chair and banging her spoon against the table, singing one of her made-up songs about the dog in the moon and chocolate pudding. Her hair was in two messy blond pigtails, with purple berries on the elastic bands. Jeopardy went the long way around the table to avoid her, which was wise. When Violet gets excited, sometimes she grabs whatever’s in front of her, even if it’s a dog’s tail.
Dad was at the head of the table, feeding applesauce to Violet and reading the paper at the same time. He grinned when he saw me.
“Ready for school, kiddo?” he said.
Yeah, right.
“Sure,” I said. Dad was really excited about his new job, although it didn’t sound any different from his old job to me — something about computers and numbers and software and stocks and yawn, I’m asleep already.
The main difference seemed to be that he wore suits to his old job, but today he had on a dark blue button-down shirt and gray pants, the same color as his eyes. He wasn’t even wearing a tie. Now what were we supposed to get him for every Christmas and birthday?
I set my backpack down next to my chair while I got my cereal. Jeopardy immediately poked her nose inside, sniffing my notebooks suspiciously. I tried to nudge her away with my foot as I sat down. She stepped back, looked at me for a second, and then stuck her nose right back inside the backpack. A few minutes later, I noticed that she was trying to drag my pencil case out with her teeth. I managed to snag it back from her right before she ran off with it.
Mom hurried in, looking flustered. She thought she’d have more time to settle in before she started working as a substitute teacher at the high school, but they’d called her already with an emergency, so she had to start on Monday just like me. Which, if you ask me, was poetic justice (something else we learned about last year in fifth grade).
“What are you going to do with Jeopardy while you’re at work?” I asked. Jeopardy’s ears perked up and she pawed at my leg like, I could go with you! Let’s hang out! You don’t look busy! Forget this school thing! Down with backpacks and pencil cases!
“There’s a day care for dogs in town,” Mom said. “Your dad can drop her off while I take Violet to pre-K.”
“Who’s taking me?” I asked. I couldn’t decide which would be worse, sharing the car with screaming Violet or staring Jeopardy.
“I’ll take you, if you’re ready in ten minutes,” Mom said, whisking Violet off the chair. My sister yowled as Mom carried her upstairs to brush her teeth.
Dad raised his eyebrows at Jeopardy. “Whatcha think?” he said to the dog. “You want to go meet some new furry friends?”
She wagged her tail and then looked back at me like, See, I’m not nervous. I’m going to make loads of new friends today, just you wait.
“We’ll see about that,” I said to Jeopardy. “I know you. You act all excited when you meet a dog, but then when they try to be friendly, you run away again. Because you’re weird, Jeopardy.”
She wagged her tail harder and went “Ruff!” as if I’d made a totally genius observation.
“That’s just a Sheltie thing,” Dad said. “They’re a little shy, but she’ll warm up, especially as she spends more time with other dogs. Hey, your mom said you met someone in the park on Saturday?”
“Yeah,” I said, getting up to put my bowl in the dishwasher. “She was kind of crazy, though.”
“Noah!” my mom yelled from upstairs. “Five minutes!”
I’d already packed my stuff the night before, so it didn’t take me long to get out the door. I really hoped I wasn’t missing anything important, and that I wasn’t bringing anything lame. My notebooks were all in sensible, boring colors with nothing on them, although I deliberately chose Bills colors (red, dark blue, royal blue, and white) so at least they were secretly cool. My backpack was plain red and I’d taken off the Batman and Robin buttons from Victor and Anjali. Those were kind of an inside joke, so I wasn’t sure how the kids here would react to them. My polo shirt was dark blue and I was wearing khakis because I wasn’t sure if jeans were allowed.
I wanted to look as normal as possible. I remembered a new kid showing up last year, in fifth grade, wearing a shirt that said I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I AM. We all thought he was trying too hard. I didn’t want to be that kid.
I also didn’t want to be the kid who had to be walked into school by his mom, although I had to argue with her for a while before she agreed to let me go in by myself. I had terrible visions of Violet doing her siren impression in the halls with me standing there turning bright red.
The school was made of red brick with big windows. There was a playground not far from the parking lot with blue-and-yellow monkey bars and a slide and wood chips on the ground. We could see little kids climbing all over it as we pulled into the parking lot. Violet pressed her nose up to the window, hollering, “I WANT! I WANT!”
“Have a good day!” Mom called, rolling down the window. “Call me if you need anything!” She drove away before I could point out that I had no idea what the high school phone number was.
I spotted the main office as I came through the front door. A skinny man with bushy white eyebrows was standing outside it, glaring at the kids running past him. He was wearing a suit and looked all official, but he also looked kind of scary.
I stopped to watch him, trying to decide whether to ask him for help or try to get by him into the office. And right then someone whammed into me at full force.
As I crashed to the ground, I heard a voice yell, “RORY! Look what you DID!” It sounded like that girl from the park, Heidi.
“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” said a girl’s voice. She grabbed my hands and pulled me back onto my feet before I could even catch my breath. “Oh, and I don’t even know you,” she said, as if knocking over people she did know was totally OK.
The girl who’d crashed into me was shorter than me, with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing a Red Sox T-shirt and jean shorts, although it was October and most of the other kids had on long sleeves and pants already. There were pink and purple marker scribbles all over her white Keds.
“I know him!” Heidi said cheerfully from behind Rory. She dusted off my backpack with a couple of vigorous thwacks that nearly sent me toppling over again. “We met at the dog run. He has an awesome dog!”
Rory laughed. “Heidi, all dogs are awesome to you. Are you OK, guy?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“You should watch where you stand,” she said.
“You should watch where you run,” I said. I meant it to be funny, but it came out sounding kind of obnoxious. Rory squinted at me like she couldn’t tell whether I was trying to pick a fight.
“Nathan, this is Rory,” Heidi barreled on as if she hadn’t heard me. “Rory, this is Nathan. His dog’s name is Jeopardy.”
Well, that was a fantastic sign. She remembered my dog’s name but got mine completely wrong.
“Actually —” I started to say, but the bell rang and cut me off.
“ ’Bye, Nathan!” Rory yelled and ran off down the hall.
“No running!” the white-haired man shouted after her. “Would you like another week of detention, Miss Mason?” Rory slowed down to a funny-looking fast walk and Heidi cracked up.
“Come on,” she said once she’d stopped giggling. “Mr. Peary’s class is in here.” She took my elbow and steered me over to a bright yellow door. We passed a big guy at his locker and he gave me a weird mean look for no apparent reason.
The desks in Mr. Peary’s classroom were set up in a square with the teacher’s desk along one side and students’ desks along the other three. All the guys were in a clump in the middle, with girls on the two ends. I counted in my head: eight girls, six boys — plus me made seven boys.
&nbs
p; “Hi Mr. Peary!” Heidi said brightly to the man at the front of the room. Mr. Peary looked young for a teacher, like my mom does, but he was dressed like a grown-up in a button-down green shirt and gray slacks. He had a thin brown beard and glasses that he used for reading the attendance book, then took off while he talked to the class. He set down his coffee mug and shook my hand. I noticed there was a picture of the Mona Lisa on the mug, but it was one of those mugs where things appear when there’s hot liquid in it, so she had a cartoon mustache, beard, and beret.
“This is Nathan!” Heidi said. “Want me to pull up a desk for him?”
“That would be great, Heidi,” Mr. Peary said. He glanced at a note on his desk, looking puzzled. “Did you say Nathan?”
“Actually —” I started.
SCCCRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH! Desk legs shrieked along the floor as Heidi dragged a desk into place at one end of the square. Mr. Peary winced and opened his mouth to stop her.
“It’s Noah,” I said quickly, before Mr. Peary could get distracted.
“Oh, that’s what I thought,” he said. “Heidi, get someone to help you, please.”
I turned to reach for the desk, but a curly-haired girl was there ahead of me. She took one end and helped Heidi lift it the last few inches. Of course, now I was sitting next to a girl, several desks away from the pack of guys, who all sat together in the middle. I glanced over at them and saw a slick-looking blond guy chuckling, probably about how I’d needed two girls to move my desk for me. He elbowed the African-American kid next to him, but the second guy didn’t look up from whatever he was drawing in his notebook.
The second bell rang and the last few kids dove into their seats. My desk was next to the curly-haired girl; on the other side of her was Heidi, who nearly knocked over her chair as she jumped into it.
“All right, class,” Mr. Peary said, tapping his desk with a pen. “Time to pay attention. Tara, Natasha, that includes you.” Two girls on the far side of Heidi stopped whispering and gave him innocent looks. “As you may have noticed, we have a new student today. Let’s all go around the room and tell him who we are — but don’t worry, Noah, we know it’s a lot to absorb, so we won’t expect you to remember us all right away. We’ll start over here.” He nodded at the girl on the far side of the square from me.