When Jamie and Thad head upstairs, Seth asks them to slip his essay under Mrs. Canada’s door. “Want us to take yours, too?” Thad asks Mark.
Mark shakes his head. He miscounted—what he thought was twelve pages was really eight; he’s still a good four pages away from being able to turn in anything yet.
“She said three,” Jamie reminds him. “It’s already—”
“I’ll be fine,” Mark says. “Jeez, they probably won’t even be back until five. She won’t know if I’m a few minutes late.”
Thad starts, “What if she—”
“Let me work!” Mark hunches over his notebook, shoulders squared against his friends. He doesn’t mean to snap—it’s his own fault, really, for waiting until the eleventh hour to finish his essay, but he doesn’t need anyone to point it out to him.
As Jamie and Thad head out, Seth stretches
