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had that in common. They worked the same hours. They also had the same days off and the same vacation time.
    Jesse had spent the summer in Dallas with his mother. She had taken him to Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, and to the Sixth Floor Museum across the street, where Jesse studied numerous exhibits that described the events surrounding the assassination. They had also taken a tour of Cowboys Stadium in Arlington and had spent a day at Six Flags over Texas. One evening, they attended a rodeo show at the Stockyards in Forth Worth. On another night, they sat on the grass outside the Dallas Museum of Art to listen to a jazz concert.
    With the lousy year Jesse had been having, he had considered moving to Dallas when the semester was over. But now with a man in his mother’s life, where did that leave him? He had been looking forward to spending Thanksgiving break with her, but how much time would she give him if Homer Simpson was hanging around? What if she got serious about him? What if she decided she wanted to marry Homer Simpson? D’oh!

CHAPTER SEVEN
    M onday afternoon, Jesse’s last class of the day, Spanish, ended at two-fifteen, and he made his way out of the building. Football players were allowed to leave school early because practice began at three, and they had to get to the field house. Some of the newer schools in San Antonio had field houses on their campuses, but Jesse’s was a few blocks away, across from an elementary school. Bucky was in his class, so they walked out together. Wendell and Goose waited for them at the bottom of the steps.
    â€œ Quiero tres tazas de té, por favor ,” Bucky told the guys.
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?” Goose asked.
    â€œIt means, I’d like three cups of tea, please,” Bucky explained.
    â€œI know what it means,” Goose said, “but why did you say it?”
    â€œIt’s a phrase we learned in Spanish class today. We’ve been learning how to say restaurant phrases.” Bucky held up two fingers. “ ¿Tiene una mesa para dos personas? That means do you have a table for two people.”
    â€œI can speak Spanish, you know,” Goose said irately.
    â€œ La cuenta, por favor ,” Bucky continued. “That means . . . ”
    â€œYou guys ready to go?” Wendell interrupted.
    â€œYeah.” Goose grabbed his backpack from the concrete railing and hurried off before Bucky could babble on with his Spanish lesson.
    Bucky was picking up Spanish quickly—much faster than Jesse. Being Latino, Jesse felt stupid taking Spanish. He should have learned the language at home. It wasn’t his fault that his parents didn’t bother to teach it to him. At first, some of the kids in his class assumed Jesse spoke Spanish and was taking the course for an easy A. It didn’t take long before they discovered that his Spanish was just as poor as theirs.
    Jesse had continued to maintain a B average in Spanish class because of the song he had performed. But he hadn’t written Tragedia de Julia Hernández ; his father had. If it hadn’t been for his father’s poem, Jesse would be bombing out in that class.
    Riley King drove his car out of the parking lot and headed toward them. Mitch Maloof rode with him. Goose tried flagging him down for a ride, but Riley ignored him and kept driving.
    â€œHey, Riley!” Goose shouted. “There’s no ‘I’ in TEAM, remember?”
    â€œMaybe there’s no ‘I’ in TEAM,” Jesse said, “but there’s an ‘M’ and an ‘E,’ and that jerk thinks the team’s all about him.”
    On their way to the field house, Goose told the guys about a Halloween party he was hosting. “I wanna invite the whole team,” he said. Glancing down the street, he clarified, “Well, most of the team.”
    Wendell pulled a plastic baggie filled with celery sticks and