The Real Deal by Lindsey Stoddard

Author:Lindsey Stoddard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

14.

REUBEN

I USED TO HIDE in bathroom stalls. I’d stand on the toilet seat so no one could see my sneakers.

Until recess was over.

My principal found me there one afternoon and told my mom maybe I’d do better with a new school. A fresh start.

This is my third new school.

My third fresh start.

15.

MY MOM ALWAYS REMINDS me that we have to ride single file on our bikes, even if there aren’t any cars on the street, but I want to zoom up next to Oliver and ask him about where he went for such a long time during math class. So I look quickly behind me to check for cars and pedal up next to him.

“Hey,” I say. “Where’d you go during math?”

He stands up on his pedals and gets his wheel out a little ahead of mine. “The gym was unlocked, so I was practicing my free throws,” he says. “Until Principal Tacker showed up and asked me what I thought I was doing there and took the ball.”

“Taker,” I say.

He laughs and says, “Exactly.”

He keeps pedaling hard and inching ahead. We’re on our way to Knox and Kobe’s, and I don’t want to be late, because I’m trying to be responsible, but I also don’t want to be early, because I know I can’t do one minute more than two hours with those two.

Oliver and I took our time after school, packing up slowly at our lockers and sharing the crackers and string cheese my mom packed for snack. Then after all the buses left we walked slowly to our bikes. But if he’s going to be standing up on his pedals and cruising like this, I think we’ll still be early.

I pull up next to him again. “That was really your mom’s friend?” I ask.

“Who?”

“The real estate lady, from math. The one who knew you.” I stand up on my pedals and am huffing to stay with him.

“Oh, not really,” he says. He’s pedaling and pedaling, and my legs are burning to keep up. “She just comes in on my mom’s shift sometimes and has seen me there, too, so she thinks we’re best friends now.”

I laugh and say, “Well, that position is unfortunately already taken.”

“Exactly,” Oliver says, and I sink back behind him to turn on to Knox and Kobe’s street. And as we coast to their house I’m thinking that it has never once occurred to me to just not go to class and do whatever I felt like instead, which would be read about Dog Man in the back window seat of the library all day. But I also didn’t think just not going to class would ever cross Oliver’s mind either. And I know he’s serious about basketball, but it’s like someone just told him he could try out for the NBA or something and now he has to practice all the time.

Knox and Kobe are out in their driveway riding matching tricycles. One of them has a wheel stuck in the mud and can’t get it to roll.

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