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hear. Or that there will be some weird sign of failed sex on them—like the scarlet letter, almost—that I'll have to pretend not to see.
    I wait until I can't wait any longer; I don't want to be late picking up Zik and condemn him to the indignity of taking the bus. Even though I haven't heard Dad leave yet, I head out to the kitchen.
    He's sitting at the table, stirring the contents of a big metallic coffee mug.
    "You're up early for someone who doesn't have to go to school," he says.
    "I'm taking Zik to school."
Like yesterday,
I want to add, but don't. Dad's not known for the quantity of clues in his possession.
    "That's nice of you." He frowns and peers into his mug. His eyes go to the creamer, and I can almost see the conflict within him.
    "Look," he goes on, reaching for the creamer, "your mother is going to be out late tonight. Some baby shower or wedding shower or..." He regards the creamer in his hands, then tips it enough to let a few drops into his coffee. This seems to make him happy. "Some damn shower or other. Anyway, I was thinking we'd just do pizza for dinner. Does that work for you?"
    "Sure, Dad. Whatever you want. Can Zik come over?"
    "Sure, sure. How is Zik these days?"
    I love how he says "these days," as if he hasn't seen Zik in years, as if Zik is some stranger from a remote land who shows up on the summer solstice and that's it.
    "He's doing OK. Pissed at me for getting suspended. He says I'm gonna lose my swing without practice."
    Dad grunts. "You won't lose your swing in three days. That's stupid."
    My dad is not one for idle chitchat.
    Dad leaves for work and I slug down a granola bar and milk before heading out to the car.

Chapter 6
     

I Am Iron Man
    When Zik climbs in next to me a few minutes later, he has a weird look on his face. Almost as if he's trying not to smile.
    "You OK?" I ask him.
    "Oh, yeah. Sure." He gives me the once-over. "How about you? You OK?"
    Is this about the newspaper article again? "Yeah, man, I'm fine."
    Zik nods as if he doesn't believe me. There's an anticipatory silence in the car as I pull away from Zik's house, as if we're each waiting for the other to say something. After a few moments, Zik breaks the silence.
    "Here, J." He pulls a spiral-bound notebook out of his backpack and holds it up to me.
    "What's that?"
    "Eyes on the road!"
    I tap the brake and come nowhere near to rear-ending a Honda. Nowhere near. Seriously.
    "Well, don't fucking wave shit in my face while I'm driving!"
    He tosses the notebook into the back seat. "I copied all my notes from bio, history, and English last night. For the last two days, you know? Sorry I couldn't go to your math class for you. Or physics." He pauses. "Or Spanish."
    Zik and I share most of our classes, but there are a couple of the really high-level math and science classes that I'm in alone. But in the meantime, he's saved me from having to hunt down all of this stuff from my teachers in most of my classes.
    "You saved my life, man. Or my GPA, at least."
    He grins. "Gotta keep the Streak alive, Iron Man."
    Years ago, a ballplayer named Cal Ripken Jr. became known as the Iron Man because he had this ungodly streak of consecutive played games: 2,632 by the time he was finished. People who like baseball like to talk about home run records and hitting records and pitching records—they bring up Bonds and McGwire and Clemens and Wood; all that. But people who
love
baseball know that Ripken's record is
the
record, the record that will go unbroken as long as we live. Why? It's simple: Anyone can have a good season and hit enough homers to kick Barry Bonds out of the record books. Anyone can have a lucky game and get twenty-one strikeouts in nine innings, thereby eclipsing Clemens, Wood, and Johnson at once. But Ripken's record spans
seventeen seasons.
It's not a case where you can have a good game or a good season or juice yourself up on steroids and break a record. You can't break Ripken's record with luck or a burst of skill.