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as a house?” Miranda said.
    “What?” Lucy and I asked at the same time.
    “I heard Sierra telling Stephanie and Emma how much her implant cost.”
    “Why?” I asked. Was she trying to impress them? Make them think she was important because she had expensive stuff inside and outside her deaf head? Did she think she was better than everyone because her head was worth as much as a house? Who even knew how much a house cost? Who cared?
    “How much do your hearing aids cost?” Miranda asked.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t pay for them. And I’ll bet she doesn’t know how much her implant costs either. She was asleep when she got it.”
    “Really?” Miranda looked surprised.
    “You have to have an operation to get an implant. They can’t cut your head open when you’re awake.”
    “They cut her head open?” Miranda was shocked.
    “How else do you think they get it in?”
    “That sounds scary,” Miranda said. “I think you’re better off.”
    “Me too,” I said.

Chapter 7
    Our next running club practice on Thursday started out slightly better than the first one. Stephanie and Emma were in such a hurry to be first, they didn’t pay attention to Lucy and me.
    I thought maybe we could keep up with them. But two blocks after we started, Lucy looked like she was going to have a heart attack. She was huffing like my grandparents’ neighbor who has emphysema and is permanently attached to an oxygen tank.
    I wanted to say something encouraging, but what can you tell your best friend when she is torturing herself other than, “Stop that! Now!” which I didn’t think would be helpful.
    Miss Fielding had a better idea. She put her arm around Lucy’s shoulder. “Let’s walk a little.”
    Lucy shook her head. Sweat dripped off her face.
    “It’s good to take a break,” Miss Fielding said. “We’ll run again when you’re ready.”
    That worked. Lucy bent over, sweaty and panting. I wished we could keep going.
    “Why don’t you catch up with the rest,” Miss Fielding said to me, pointing off in the distance to where the running club was heading into the river valley.
    Could she see inside my head too, like Mrs. Shewchuk? I looked at Lucy again. Her hair was matted to her forehead and cheeks. “I’ll stay,” I said. “Friends stick together.”
    When I said “friends,” Lucy gave me a pained, wheezy smile. “You should go,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m so slow.”
    “Uh-uh,” I said. “I probably couldn’t keep up anyway.”
    I had never lied to Lucy before. I wondered if she could tell, but she was grimacing again and I was pretty sure it was because her lungs hurt, or whatever it is that hurts when you run more than you want, or can.
    Dried leaves covered the path, which was wide enough so we could run side by side. The sun washed through the canopy of trees. A light breeze cooled the air.
    “Do you want to keep going?” I asked, hopefully.
    Lucy nodded. “I just don’t know for how long. My chest still hurts.” She took a deep breath and squeezed out two more words. “Let’s go.”
    We headed into the river valley, but the rest of the club was out of sight. I meant to stay with Lucy and Miss Fielding, but it was as if I forgot where I was and who I was with. I glided down the path and couldn’t hear anything except my feet on the packed dirt and dead leaves.
    The first cross-country meet was next Wednesday, one week away. The farthest I had run without stopping was four hundred meters. Miss Fielding told us the race at Laurier Park would be twelve hundred meters.
    I wondered if I should practice on the weekend, but with who? Mom didn’t like to exercise. Dad worked all weekend. There was no way I’d ask Lucy.
    I wondered if Stephanie and Emma practiced together. They wouldn’t call it practice though. They would call it training. Training was important. Everything they did was important. Being friends with Sierra was one more important thing. Because everyone knew