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“Can I see your test again?”

When he handed it back and she gave it a once over, the teacher nodded.

“It’s obvious you know the material. You just made some minor mistakes here and there.”

“Yeah. I guess I didn’t have my head on all the way,” Bren said, trying to smile.

Mrs. Tremblay handed the test back then gave him another nod.

“How about this? If you want to go back and do the evens for the last two chapters, I’ll count that as extra credit to bump the grade up this once.”

Bren’s insides recoiled at the idea of more homework, but the part of him that held closest to the shape of Arlo’s heart breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe if he got a 90 on his maths final his brain would let him relax over Christmas break.

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She didn’t smile back and instead pulled open one of her drawers and rummaged inside it.

“Here. Brain food.”

She tossed him a couple of packets of what he thought might have been fruit snacks but were almonds.

“Ah, cheers.”

She smiled this time and let him leave.

When he caught up with Arlo and Nat in the hall, he said, “What the feck are senior shirts?”

“Shirts that seniors wear, duh,” Nat said.

“Gee, thanks.”

He skirted around her aura of smugness and nudged A.J. in the shoulder.

“What did Mrs. Tremblay want?” A.J. asked.

“She reckons I’m lookin’ peaky,” he said, pulling the almonds from his pocket.

“Oh, no, not the almonds,” Nat said, taking one when Bren tore a packet open. “She heard me say I had coffee for breakfast last year and threw some at me.”

Bren had finished crunching his almonds when they made it to the main staircase.

“So, senior shirts?” he asked, nodding at the forms Arlo was clinging to.

“Oh! They’re really ugly shirts that only seniors get to wear,” he said. “You can put whatever you want on them. Nicknames, jersey numbers, that kind of stuff.”

“Age and I were going to be Elphie and Glinda,” Nat said. “But that went out the window.” She leaned forwards to glare daggers at him, but Bren had gotten to know her well enough not to take her seriously.

“So, I guess mine’s Robolad now, huh?” Arlo asked, when the eye-stabbing didn’t get a reaction. “And you’re, what, uh, The Navigator? That’s kind of weird, right?”

“How about Big Red?” Nat asked in a tone of complete sincerity.

“Lucky Charms?” Arlo added, like he couldn’t help himself.

Bren snatched one of the forms and skimmed the words on it. “Thin ice, the both of you.”

“Just working with what we’ve got,” Nat said as she dared to ruffle his hair.