The Sign-Up Sheet Disaster
The intercom crackles right in the middle of math class, which is the exact moment I'm finally about to figure out what x equals.
"Travis Ngwenya to the office, please. Travis Ngwenya to the office."
Every single head in the room swivels toward me like I'm a criminal being led away in handcuffs. Somebody in the back row does that long, drawn-out "oooooooh" that thirteen-year-olds have been doing since the dawn of time, and Mrs. Petrovic just waves her hand at me without even looking up from her grade book, like this is the most normal thing in the world.
It is not normal. Nothing good has ever come from being called to the office. Nothing. In the history of school, no kid has ever walked down that hallway thinking, *I bet they want to give me a trophy.*
I gather my stuff slow, buying myself time to run through the list of things I might be in trouble for. There's the thing with the ketchup packet in Aasim's backpack, but that was two weeks ago and he never even noticed. There's the thing with the fire drill where I may or may not have been the one who set off the alarm a full ten minutes early because I wanted to skip the end of a pop quiz. That one's got some legs.
By the…
