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Tim’s hair back so hard that Tim thought it would come out in clumps. “Do you know how much it cost to get my tooth fixed?”
    It made Tim feel a little better that their scuffle in the church stairwell had cost Jeff something. But when he noticed a ripple in the water below and agreenish gray back floating on top, he tried to grab hold of the railing.
    “After this, we’re even,” Jeff said. “You got it? You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.”
    “How can we be even if you kill me?” Tim said.
    “Not going to kill you, just going to let you get a little wet.”
    “I can’t swim,” Tim said.
    The three laughed and pitched him over the railing.

Chapter 10
Autographed Car
    JAMIE’S MOM AND DAD were talking in the kitchen early the next morning, sipping coffee and flipping the onionskin pages of Bibles. They did this every morning whether her dad was on the road or not. When he was at a race, they talked on the phone and prayed together. Part of Jamie liked that they were in love and made God the center of their lives. Another part of her felt it was schmaltzy, like some figurine of Jesus with his arm around a race car driver. She was sure their belief wasn’t fake like some. Still, she didn’t know if she could ever be that good.
    Jamie paused on the stairs, looking through the door at her parents holding hands, their eyes closed, heads bowed. She wished they would find some verse in the Bible that said, “Thou shalt let thy daughter follow her NASCAR dreamand not hinder her, for she wilt one day win the Nextel Cup,” but she’d read enough of the Bible to know there was nothing like that in there. Although there was some verse about running a race so you could win the prize.
    She slipped out of the house without facing them and hopped in Maxie, her restored 1965 Ford Mustang. She’d bought the car and worked on it for a solid year before getting her driver’s license. It was almost a part of the family, and she hated the thought of selling it (though an ad had already run in the paper), but if she couldn’t sell her Legend car, she’d have to sell Maxie. She needed the money.
    She glanced at the house and saw her father’s face in the kitchen window, then put the car in first and spun her tires in the gravel. Her mom stepped onto the porch in her bathrobe. Jamie was already halfway down the driveway, and she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw her mom wave.
    Jamie went through the motions at school that day, not able to think of anything but the Skylar Jennings Driving School.
    As usual, Cassie met her for lunch in the commons. “I heard from the prayer tree that Chad’s doing a lot better and will probably come home today. They said he might have a pinched nerve in his neckor something that’ll hurt for a while, but all the other blood work came out fine. Isn’t that great?”
    Jamie nodded. It was hard to think about Chad when her whole world was screeching to a halt.
    “You don’t seem very excited,” Cassie said. “What’s wrong?”
    Jamie sighed. “How do you do that? Crawl inside my head and know what I’m thinking?”
    “I don’t know what you’re thinking. That’s why I asked you.” Cassie opened her bagel sandwich and whispered a brief prayer.
    Then Jamie spilled the story about why she felt so bad. “It’s like I’m a mountain climber and I’m within a few feet of the top of Mount Everest, but somebody comes along and makes me climb down.”
    “Wait, let’s look at the positives here,” Cassie said.
    “What could you possibly see as positive from all that?”
    “Well, first, you are in the top 43 prospects in the country. I’d say that’s pretty good. Plus, there’s one of the top drivers in the world who’s willing to put money behind you to send you to that school.”
    “Yeah, but what good does it do if that happens but I can’t go?”
    Cassie tried to get a piece of stuck bagel from her teeth. “From what I hear, storms whip up fast on