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ON THURSDAY
at lunch we compare notes. I've been talking about the bus incident for the last two days, and now Mandy and Delia are reliving something that happened in the hall yesterday, between lunch and fourth period.

Delia is giddy. “He didn't even know what to think,” she says, referring to their encounter with frequent Mandy-taunter Garrett “Glass Eye” Pearson, who, when he sees Mandy approaching, sometimes shouts, “Outbreak!” and asks everyone around him if they've been vaccinated against bubonic plague.

But yesterday, just as a twinkle of excitement was forming in his good eye, Delia and Mandy planned and carried out their distraction. It involved Delia “going long” and Mandy launching a pudding cup, sailing it just inches in front of Garrett's nose—which caused him to duck and cover, and most importantly, scream like a nine-year-old girl.

“He was
so
embarrassed,” Mandy laughs. “He had no
clue
what happened.”

“Well, that's nothing like my technique,” Joey gloats. We all roll our eyes, but start laughing all over again. Corbin, whose favorite name for Joey is simply “Nancy,” had bumped into Joey at the trash can during lunch, and opened his mouth to rail into him. But while Corbin was busy cueing—his eyes narrowing to slits, his nostrils starting to flutter—Joey, very clearly and very calmly, said something else very simple: “Balls.” That was it.

Corbin's mouth had trembled; he grasped for something to say. But by that time, Joey had perfected his smile and walked away, slowly and straightly and just
oozing
confidence. It was practically beautiful.

Phoebe's nibbling on a date bar, looking happily lost in thought.

“What about you, Phoebe? Anything to report?” I ask.

“Well, there's Brant, of course,” she says, shrugging shyly.

“Oh, God, Martin. Let's please not hear about Brant,” Joey groans.

Phoebe puts down her date bar and glares at him.

“Well, Pheeb, you know,” I say. “The thing with Brant, well, it happened way too early to be a result of the training—”

“And we're still wondering why,” Joey interrupts.

“He
likes
me!” Phoebe yells at Joey.

“Don't get your panties in a wad,” Mandy says. “Just stop focusing so much on Brant and start working on the other people, who aren't so…” She pauses and adds, even though it clearly pains her, “Nice.”

Phoebe's face softens. She sighs and goes back to her nibbling.

Just then, Delia's head goes low and her eyes widen. “Isn't that the new kid? What do you think he's
doing
?” she asks, her suspicious herder gene on red alert.

I follow her gaze. And there he is—Caleb, a.k.a. Young Uncle Jesse. He's going from table to table. He's talking to people and actually shaking hands. Doesn't he realize this is
middle school
? He stops at Peyton Randall's table, sweeping a hand through his dark hair, nodding, talking. Peyton grins. One of the other girls scoots over like she's offering him a place to sit. But thankfully, he just sticks out his hand again, and the girl shakes it, and he moves on to the next table.

Delia pokes me. “So what do you think he's up to?” And that's when I realize I haven't taken a breath in the last three minutes.

“Well, he's definitely introducing himself,” I say. “But why? I'm not sure.”

“Maybe that's what people do wherever he comes from,” Phoebe suggests.

“And where's that?
Uranus?
” Joey adds, but it doesn't matter, because just then Mandy whispers, “
Shhh
. He's coming!”

He approaches our table with not so much a smile but a look of contentment. “Hi there, sorry to interrupt, I just wanted to—” He cocks his head to the side, looking directly at me. “I know you, don't I?”

I look down at the table and find a nice grape-juice stain to study, just as Phoebe says, very quickly, “It's not true, whatever you heard.”

My jaw clenches, but I keep my gaze on the stain. I am starting to think I should maybe look for the face of Jesus or his mother or something else that proves that miracles just might exist, but all I see is an ordinary splat. I finally take a quick breath and look up. “We met in the hallway the other day.”

“Oh. right.” And then he
doesn't
laugh, which not only makes him polite but so very thoughtful. “It's Olivia, isn't it?”

My name. He remembers my name! My eyes jump up from the juice stain and practically leap into his. And then. He smiles. My heart is doing so many ridiculous little dances in my chest that I feel like it could short-circuit.

While I'm busy accepting the fact that I am probably having a heart attack, and actually happy enough at this very moment to be okay with that, he introduces himself to the rest of my friends. “Well, for those of you who I haven't already met, I'm Caleb Austin.” He pauses, so Phoebe jumps in and starts rattling off everyone's names.

“Where are you from, anyway?” Joey asks—or actually, accuses.

“Saudi Arabia,” he tells us.

Joey gives us a very smug smile, like,
What did I tell you?

“Then why don't you have some kind of accent?” It's Delia and her wary herder gene again.

So he tells us about his dad being some kind of diplomat, and how they were in Saudi Arabia for two years, and how he went to American schools, and how before that, they lived in California. By the time he gets to that, Delia's paranoia has disappeared, and she, too, is practically scooting over to make him room and offering him some of her (unsweetened green) tea, courtesy of her granola mother. That is, until he tells us
why
he's introducing himself—which we've forgotten even mattered.

“Well, it's been really nice to meet you all,” he says. “And I hope you'll think of me on October seventeenth.”

And this is how off track we've gotten. How utterly, completely, ridiculously off track. Mandy picks at her eyebrow scab between sips of her smoothie. Phoebe is barely there, her gaze focused across the cafeteria on Brant. Joey is making strange shapes with cheese that he's stolen from the distracted Phoebe. And Delia's guard is down by her ankles, which is proven when she asks, through a mouth full of sunflower seeds, “Oh, why? Is it your birthday?”

“Oh, no.” He laughs. “It's election day.” And as my dumb little overactive heart slams into a rib, he adds, “And I'm running for president.”

IT'S FRIDAY
after school. I step onto the bus and make my way to the back, passing by Brynne and her sidekick Carolyn, who barely glance up at me. Brynne sits slumped in the seat, her knees raised to rest against the seat in front of her, where Danny sits. Tamberlin is nearby—though she chews her gum with a wide and open mouth, she is silent. I brush by their clump, surprised and relieved by their unusual quiet.

I sit down in a seat by myself and pull out
A Wrinkle in Time
. I'm only halfway down the page when I hear my name being called. I look up. The entire population of the bus looks back at me.

“Does your grandmother drive a pickup truck?” Tamberlin asks.

I have that sinking feeling again in my stomach. I'm sure they're setting me up for some sort of joke, like they used to do with the granny panties. Just when I thought we were really getting somewhere! I push my gaze back into my book. It's too late for a distraction, so I will
try
to read. I will
try
to ignore it.

“Olivia!” I hear my name again. It's Carolyn this time, and she sounds exasperated. “Isn't that your grandma?”

A horn sounds. I look out the window. It
is
my grandmother. She's pulled the pickup truck up next to the bus, and is waving wildly. Although I'm majorly embarrassed, I'm even more relieved. For once I'm not the butt of some sort of joke. “Thanks,” I say to Carolyn as I squeeze past her.

She gives me a puzzled look back. “Okay. Whatever,” I hear her say just before I step off the bus.

“What are you doing here?” I ask Corny as I climb into the passenger's side. But as soon as I sniff the meaty, yeasty smell of homemade dog biscuits, I know. “We're going to see Kisses?”

She nods. “You're doing such a good job with her.”

I sigh. I'm tired and hungry, and I'd rather be home watching
Full House
. But I manage to give her a smile.

She smiles back. “She's one of the toughest cases we've had, and I think you deserve this.” She hands me a root beer Slurpee. It's sweet and cool, and even though I know it's just mostly sugar and ice, it makes her words feel almost true.

So. Yeah.

Turns out I'm supposed to use the bone-shaped dog biscuits to “reward” Kisses the same way Corny used the Slurpee to “reward” me. Not that she's put it that way, but it's pretty obvious. Nice.

“It's not like I'm a dog, Grandma,” I remind her.

“I know. But I don't care—I love you anyway.”

This time, not only does Kisses
not
attack the car, but she seems almost happy to see me and my good posture. She wags her little stalk of a tail, and I start to notice how cute she actually is when she's not acting like an assassin.

We go back around to the patio, and Corny sets out the sod again—this time four pieces together to make a larger square. I walk Kisses in circles around the little lawn squares for several minutes, and then I start to walk her right up to them. When her head lowers, I tug gently up on the leash. She raises her head and takes another two steps forward before stopping just in front of the sod.

“Sit,” I say, and she does. I'm tempted to give her a piece of the biscuit, but Corny tells me not yet. So I just say “Good girl” and take a step backward. I'm standing on the sod.

We do it again. She takes a step forward, and then hesitates. And then another. Her front paw is standing on top of a grass square. “Good girl!” I practically squeal. Corny gives me permission to give her a small piece of the biscuit. But I have to place it in the center of the sod, surrounded by the grass blades.

You can tell she's torn. She wants to pull back and go forward at the same time. Her teeny neck stretches ahead, she takes a couple of steps and sniffs the biscuit. Then, lightning-bolt fast, she dips her head into the grass to grab the treat, and runs away from the sod as far as her leash will allow.

Corny clasps her hands together and smiles. Mr. Dewey brings his palms together like a prayer. And then Kisses comes back toward me. “Another step farther,” Corny coaches me. I plant a piece of biscuit in the far end of the grass. Kisses slowly steps onto the sod, her little twig legs shaking as she advances. She dips into the grass, grabs the biscuit, and tries to run away again. This time I hang on to her leash so she has to chew while standing on the sod.

Now I've got to get her to sit down. I give her the sit command and she moves around on the sod in a semi- squatting motion, her rear end grazing the grass and then popping back up again. I tug upward on her leash and push gently down on her back, and then finally, believe it or not, she officially sits down on the sod. I feel the thrilling rush of success as I give her the full biscuit. She lowers onto her belly, holding the bone-shaped treat up between her two front paws to better gnaw on it. We all cheer.

I'm finding this reward thing pretty rewarding all by itself.

When I get home, I have a letter from my dad. It's a card with a black-and-white picture of a sleeping cat on it. It looks just like a skinnier version of Grey, my old cat. My dad kind of spoils her. Sometimes I think my mom replaced me with her new life, and my dad replaced me with Grey. I give him a little more slack—he was both father and mother to me for a while, so he's got to do something with those parental instincts now that I've moved away.

I open the card and a check falls out. It's forty dollars I wasn't expecting, which should make me pretty happy since it means another pair of delightfully normal jeans, or maybe a decent shirt. But his note leaves me feeling a little sad.

Liv—


We might as well enjoy the unfortunate success!


Miss you and love you—


oxoxoxox Dad oxoxoxox


I guess this shows how powerful a reward can be. In this case, money. It's the whole reason my dad is staying in Valleyhead, where he has no life outside of work.

It's just another example of how people aren't that different from dogs at all.