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assistant coach."
    "Assistant coach?" I said. It might not sound so bad to you, but you have to understand that assistant coach was a position usually given to some younger kid who was not a good enough runner to be on the team. He might as well have told me I was team mascot. Assistant coach!
    "That's right."
    "Well, what do I get to do?"
    "Take attendance, get equipment, stuff like that."
    Well, what was I supposed to say to that? Austin gets all the glory and power of being team captain, and I get to take attendance. I tried to be enthusiastic, but I just couldn't, and the coach could see it in my eyes. I didn't have a poker face.
    "Thanks," I said.
    "You don't seem too happy about it."
    "No, I'm happy. I'm just a little upset about not being captain. That's all."
    "Sure, I understand. You can hang around here for a few minutes if you like. I'll give you a late pass for homeroom."
    "Naah, that's OK." I'm sure he could tell by my voice that it wasn't OK. I didn't have a poker voice either.
    "Listen," he said, "there's always high school."
    "Right," I said, silently thinking how L'Austin Spaccwould win again when we were seniors in high school. "Thanks," I said.
    "Least I could do. You're a good kid, Jared. I feel bad for you."
    "Naah, don't feel bad for me. I don't want you feeling bad for me."
    "Well, I mean that I think sometimes life gives people the short end of the stick, you know, and I think you deserve more."
    "Thanks," I said, for the twelve-hundredth time.
    "See you this afternoon?"
    "Yep."
    "Be early," he said, "so you can take attendance."
    The hall was empty when I left the gym, except for one kid; none other than L'Austin Space himself was standing outside the gym doors. He was waiting for me. It wasn't a coincidence.
    "Oh, you spoke to the coach already, huh?" he said.
    "Yep."
    "So he told you I won?"
    "How did you already know?"
    "He spoke to me first," said Austin. "You don't think he'd tell you before he told me, do you?" Austin waited for an answer, but I didn't give him one.
    "I bet you'll like being team secretary," he said.
    "Assistant coach!"
    "All it really is is team secretary. Hey, I'll make sure to give you lots of memos to type. Maybe you can come over to my house sometime and answer some phones," he said, laughing.
    I turned and walked down the hall. He followed, his Aeropeds gliding across the floor. I wanted to step on them, and leave nice gray tread marks on the snow-white leather toes.
    "It's not secretary," I said.
    "All right, 'gopher' then."
    I stopped. "What?"
    "You know, Gopher: 'hey Jared, go-pher this, hey Jared, go-pher that, hey Jared, go-pher, go-pher, go-pher.'"
    I just scowled at him. He saw the anger in my unpoker face, and laughed. "Just kidding," he said, in the nastiest, most obnoxious tone a person could come up with, then he laughed harder and turned away, his Aeropeds bouncing off down the hallway, squeaking on the floor.
    I felt more humiliated than I'd felt in a long time as I walked down the hall. It wasn't the fact that I was assistant couch that bothered me, it was the fact that Austin knew first, and as usual, made fun of me, calling me "Gopher." It was bad enough to feel hidden in his shadow, but to be humiliated; that was something else. He was twisting the knife.
    How would I feel if Austin Pace had never been born? Let's not talk about it.
    The alarm went off at 1:30. That's right, you guessed it: another school fire. I can't say I wasn't glad to hear the alarm bell; I hadn't been able to concentrate all day because of what had happened that morning. At least now I could feel angry without having to pay attention to teachers at the same time.
    Used to be nobody raised much of a fuss when the fire alarm went off. The teachers would just get the class up and funnel them "in an orderly manner" down the stairway and out into the field. Now it was much quicker, and much more serious. Used to be they were all drills or false alarms, but last year there were three real