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pack to leave.
    â€œI don’t have a dog,” he told Mrs. Bryce now in a flat, hopeless voice.
    â€œWell, if it’s okay with your parents, you’re welcome to come over and play with Petunia sometime. Robin would like that,wouldn’t you, Robin?” Mrs. Bryce said.
    Dexter knew he should tell her that he lived with his grandmother, not his parents. But he just shrugged and stared at the ground. He felt so tired all of a sudden—so tired he didn’t even bother listening to how Robin answered his mother.
    Grandma got there quickly, with a hot washcloth in a plastic bag and a whole first-aid kit ready on the front seat of her car. She had Dexter’s cut washed, disinfected and bandaged before he knew it.
    â€œYou’re . . . good at this,” Dexter mumbled, leaning his head back against the seat of the car while Grandma knelt at the curb beside him.
    Grandma laughed.
    â€œWell, you know, Dexter, I was a mother for many, many years before I became a grandmother.”
    Grandma went around to the back of the car with Mrs. Bryce. They had the trunk open and were turning Uncle Ted’s bike thisway and that, trying to figure out the best way to put it in. Dexter could hear them talking, but he couldn’t quite hear what they were saying. Robin stayed right by Dexter’s side.
    â€œI would have fainted, bleeding like that,” he said. “Didn’t it hurt? Didn’t you want to cry?”
    Dexter shrugged.
    â€œI didn’t notice,” he said.
    He could have said, “My dad’s really, really sick, and my mom left me with my grandma, and I can’t have a dog, and I had to go to a horrible new school today, and I hated everyone there, and I’m just lucky the police didn’t arrest me for fighting, and maybe they still will. . . . And you think I should cry over a stupid little scrape?”
    Except, saying that probably would make him cry.
    â€œI wish I was like you,” Robin said, biting his lip.
    Grandma and Mrs. Bryce came back around to the front of the car.
    â€œIt’d take someone with an engineering degree to fit that bike in the trunk,” Grandma said. “Mrs. Bryce says they can keep the bike in their garage until your leg’s healed enough that you can ride it home. Myrna, thanks so much, I really appreciate all you’ve done. If you hadn’t been here to help—”
    â€œOh, Dexter would have managed,” Mrs. Bryce said, waving away the thanks. “He seems like a very self-sufficient little boy.”
    Grandma slipped into the driver’s seat, and pulled the car away from the curb. Dexter still had his window rolled down—that was the only reason he heard what Robin was saying to Mrs. Bryce.
    â€œSee, Mom, that’s the boy I was telling you about. . . . ”
    The wind caught the rest of Robin’s words, so Dexter couldn’t hear anything else. But he didn’t need to. He slumped against the seat.
    Now Mrs. Bryce knows I beat up Robin, he thought. I won’t ever be able to get that bike back. I won’t ever be able to play with Robin’s dog. I won’t ever be able to come to the park again, because they might see me. Oh, why did Robin have to be the kid I beat up?

Chapter 7
    I’m the new kid. This morning I beat up Robin Bryce. In the bathroom. The one between the office and your classroom. With the blue tile on the wall. I was mad.
    The teacher, Ms. Abbott, sat reading Dexter’s story. She wasn’t twinkling, the way she had during math, and spelling, and health, and everything else they’d talked about the entire day. Her eyebrows squinted together.
    â€œThis is better,” she said finally. “You’re definitely going in the right direction.”
    â€œThen I’m done?” Dexter asked.
    That made Ms. Abbott laugh and almost—but just almost—sparkle.
    â€œOh, no,” she said.