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found herself stranded on dry land. Then the smile returned. “But that’s the wonderful thing about writing. Nobody else can judge your work. As long as you think it’s good, that’s all that matters.” She leaned over and stared at me with those big eyes, giving me that I-may-be-a-teacher-but-I-understand-you look. “Can’t you see how wonderful a thing that is?” she asked.
    Can’t I see that you’re a fruitcake?
    I almost let it go, but I couldn’t. She was wrong. I had an uncle who was always trying to write books. He’d send them out and they’d come back three or four months later with a printed slip that said, No thanks . Not even Nice try, or Good effort. Just No thanks . Which I think really meant: your book truly sucks. Please leave us alone .
    I tried to read some of his stuff once. It really stunk big-time. Talk about dog puke. Nothing ever happened. People just sat around and discussed life. Everyone drank coffee and felt bad about things they’d done in the past. I had a feeling Uncle Stan could write books for the next thousand years and he’d still stink. I looked up at Miss Nomad. She seemed so happy and eager for us to share the joys of writing.
    “It matters,” I said. “People might say they just write for themselves. That’s a lie. Everyone wants to show off. And if you stink, you can’t show off, can you? Because nobody will buy what you write. So you’re
just lying to yourself.” I stopped talking. Damn. I didn’t care either way. Why was I even bothering to say anything?
    Miss Nomad gulped again, a bit louder, then said, “Well, thank you for sharing your thoughts, Martin.”
    I had the funny feeling she didn’t like me.
    “Bad move,” Cheater whispered to me a minute later. “She’s always trying to sell her poems. She keeps sending them to magazines.”
    “She’s got hundreds of ‘em,” Torchie said. “Boxes full.”
    “And?” I asked.
    “Hasn’t sold a single one,” Cheater told me. He shook his head. “Sometimes she reads them to us.” He made a face and pinched his nose.
    Yipes. I should have figured that out before I opened my big mouth. I could just imagine Miss Nomad, fountain pen in hand, sitting at a desk jammed in the corner of some small room, filling page after page with bad poetry. I didn’t think she’d hold it against me the way Parsons did, but I’d certainly made sure I wouldn’t be the teacher’s pet in this class.
    Miss Nomad pretty much ignored me for the rest of the period. I’d become the invisible boy. Hey, that could be a nickname for me—Glassboy. See right through me. I’m not really here.
    When the bell rang, I checked my schedule. I had gym next. That would be more like it. Gym would be fun. Gym would be nice and normal—just run around and sweat. No matter how modern they got in their teaching methods, I didn’t see how they could mess with something as simple as gym.
    On the other hand, it’s amazing what adults can do when they set their minds to it.

A MINDLESS EXERCISE
    T he locker room was just a hallway next to the gym with double doors on each end. There were two long rows of dark green lockers, and a couple of wooden benches that looked like they’d been borrowed from a cheap picnic table. The place smelled a lot like the cheese section of the supermarket.
    I found a new pair of gym shorts and a shirt waiting for me in a paper bag that had Anderson written on it. I also found Bloodbath in the locker room, but he was busy horsing around with a couple of his buddies and stuffing one of the runts into a locker. I wondered whether he had some sort of checklist. If he did, Hit the new kid could be marked off for the day, along with Cram small kid in locker . The main thing was that I hadn’t become the focus of his attention.
    I was definitely ready for some exercise. There’s nothing like a good sweat to make a guy feel happy. I followed the rest of the class out of the locker room and into the gym.
    “That’s