Strays Like Us by Cecilia Galante

Author:Cecilia Galante
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

I was about halfway through my candlestick when Delia asked me what my favorite subject in school was.

“Science,” I said, without hesitation.

She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, really? I think science is one of the most boring things on the planet.”

I snorted. “Science is a lot of things, Delia, but boring isn’t one of them.”

“I always fall asleep in class.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “You’re missing out.”

“On what?”

“On everything! Like, you just mentioned planets. Did you know that Earth is the fifth-largest planet in the solar system? And that seventy percent of it is water?”

“No.” Delia shook her head. “I didn’t know that.”

“How about bones? You know anything about bones?”

“Like our bones?”

“Any bones,” I answered. “How about this? What’s the only animal on the planet with hollow ones?”

“No idea.”

“Birds!” I grinned. “How else do you think they’d get off the ground?”

“Huh.” Delia looked at me curiously for a moment. “You know, you should think about joining the Middle School Quiz Bowl at school. You could compete in the science category.”

“What’s the Quiz Bowl?”

“Oh my gosh, it’s a huge deal. Everyone comes, even parents. There’s a trophy for the winning team and everything. They hold it every year, right before Christmas break.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s a huge quiz game for the middle school kids. All the questions are about science and math. There’s two teams and twelve rounds. Sometimes at the end of twelve rounds, the game gets tied, and it has to go to a lightning round. That’s what happened last year. The kids get really competitive, too. Probably because you have to try out for it to even get on a team.”

“How do you try out?”

“You have to take a test. Before Thanksgiving, I think. The three highest scorers in each subject get to play in the bowl. I’ve never done it before, but I think I’m going to take the one for math this year. I’m pretty good at math.”

Delia’s eyes practically glittered as she spoke, and I could feel her excitement. It was weird, but I don’t think I realized how disappointed I’d been when I was called out of Mr. Poole’s Science Jeopardy game until just that moment. Coming so close to winning a class competition had been tough. Especially when I knew I was thisclose to taking the whole thing.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t really sound like my thing.”

“Why not?” Delia rubbed her sander harder across her wheel. “You know that stuff you just told me about Earth and birds and stuff? Those are the exact kind of questions they ask in the bowl. You’d be perfect, Fred. I’m telling you. They’d love to have you on the team. Just think about it, okay?”

“Okay,” I answered, knowing perfectly well that I wouldn’t. For starters, there was no way I was even going to be here to take the test or compete in the bowl.

And I didn’t really care about any of that stuff right now anyway. There were bigger—and much more important—things I had to worry about.

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