I put my foot on the gas pedal and the car lurched forward. Myles jumped out of the way, and the car accelerated as Myles screamed.
Not even a second later, I noticed gold fur out of the corner of my eye. Duke ran straight in front of me, probably trying to get to Myles because he knew something was wrong. Before I could move, the car slammed right into him.
I can still hear his yelp. The pain and hurt wrapped into one little sound that’s haunted me for years.
I couldn’t breathe as I fumbled to put the car back into park. My heart was in my throat as shock took over my body.
I jumped out of the car and time stood still. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything but watch the tears streaming down Myles’s face as he held Duke in his arms. The dog’s body was limp and I didn’t have to step closer to know how badly I’d messed up.
Myles buried his face into Duke’s fur. “Do something! Call someone!” he cried.
But I knew there wasn’t anyone we could call to fix what I’d done.
9
MYLES
I sit in a chair beside Mrs. Humphrey’s desk, mindlessly hole punching a stack of papers she needs for her next class. It should be easy, something I’ve done a million times, but my hands shake as I shove the paper into the slot.
Mrs. Humphrey is cool, which is the reason why I wanted to be her TA in the first place. She’s the kind of teacher who makes learning fun. I’ve taken three of her classes since I started school here and we get along great. She trusts me too, which only makes the knots in my stomach tighten as I glance at her while knowing what I’m going to do.
I have to steal the answers for Mallory.
Hot beads of sweat plow down my back. How am I supposed to find them with everyone here? She has twenty plus students inn the room, not to mention she’s like a hawk. She can spot a cell phone in a heartbeat.
I haven’t even stolen the answers and I want to throw up. I know there’s a high chance she’s going to catch me, but the alternative is somehow worse. I’m already risking so muchalready I can’t stop. If I don’t try, Mallory is guaranteed to blow up my entire baseball career.
Mrs. Humphrey stands in front of her whiteboard with a dry-erase marker in her hand. On the board she hasMomentumwritten in big letters. Underneath it she has the equation:p = mv.
“So,” she says, drawing a car underneath the equation. “Let’s pretend this car is moving.” She draws some lines to represent wind. “To figure out the momentum we need to multiply the car’s mass by its velocity.”
I finish hole punching the papers and set them on her desk, scanning the area for anything that could give me a clue as to where the answers are. Her desk is organized with a folder marked sixth period, the class we’re currently in, next to her computer.
I’ve seen those binders plenty of times. She keeps them in a filing cabinet underneath her desk. There’s one for each of her classes, and if she has the answers to Mallory’s test anywhere, it’s probably there.
But it’s not like I can open it up and search through it in front of her and the entire class. I need to find a way to get to it when no one else is around.
Thomas’s hand shoots up into the air.
“Yes, Thomas.”
“But what if the car isn’t moving?”
“Then the velocity would be zero, which means . . .” She gestures for him to finish the sentence. “The momentum is?”
“I don’t know.”
If I wasn’t so stressed, I would’ve laughed because I swear Mrs. Humphrey just died a little inside. She takes a breath and turns to the whiteboard to explain what she’s alreadyexplained about seven times by now. She writes in giant lettersmomentum = mass x 0.
She taps the equation with the bottom of the marker and looks straight at Thomas. “So if this is your equation, what is the momentum?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know the mass.”
“You don’t need to.”
“Why?”
I think she dies a little more. “Because anything multiplied by zero is zero.”
