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asked Megan.
    “Huh?”
    “Do the teachers give you gold stars to sit with me on the bus? And now?”
    “No,” she said. “They’d freak if they knew I was here. I’m suspended.”
    “So no gold stars?”
    “Like I’d do something for a gold star!”
    Then I felt…I felt like I had on the carousel and like I do when I watch my ballerinas.
My lips curved upward.
    “I like that you don’t do things for gold stars,” I said.
    ***
    Megan was on the bus later, even though she hadn’t been in class. It was a different
bus driver than this morning’s.
    The bus was crowded, so we stayed silent until we’d gotten off and were walking across
the parking lot.
    That’s when Megan asked if she could stay overnight at my house on Friday.
    I was surprised that she would want to do this. I hate staying the night in a strange
place. I hate hotels. I hate strange beds. I hate the way the blankets crackle with
static. I hate finding the windows in the wrong place and the lights on the clock
radio red instead of green.
    I asked Megan why she wanted to stay overnight.
    She laughed. I wondered why, because I hadn’t made a joke. “Your dad’s quiet,” she
said.
    But Dad is not quiet. He shouts, particularly when the Canucks score. And he swears
when they lose, although he tries not to. Plus he likes music and has a drum from
Africa made of animal skin with tufts of yak hair. Actually, this is quiet, because
we use it as a plant stand.
    “I don’t think he’s quiet,” I said.
    “You should hear my stepfather.”
    “Is he noisy?” I asked.
    “He drinks too much.”
    Too much root beer makes me burp. “Does he burp?”
    Megan smiled again, so I knew she was happy. “Yes,” she said.
    “I’ll have to ask my dad,” I said, because I remembered my dad had said that I shouldn’t
spend too much time with Megan because she was tough.
    “Yeah, I don’t think he likes me much,” she said.
    “He thinks you’re tough.”
    Megan laughed. “That’s why I like you. You don’t pretend. You’re honest.”
    This is called a compliment. My special-ed teacher told me I should return compliments.
    “I like that you don’t smell,” I said.
    ***
    I told Megan I’d tell her the next day if Dad said yes. Megan said again that if
I had a data plan I could text.
    Megan likes to text. She also likes Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. She has 201
friends on Facebook. She says it is easier to make friends on the computer. This
must be true, because Megan doesn’t have 201 friends at school. She doesn’t talk
much to people at school.
    I don’t have a data plan, so I said I would email. Megan looked up at the sky.
    While Dad was making dinner, I asked him if kids who were average in type, appearance,
achievement, function and development had sleepovers.
    He stood at the stove, making chicken noodle soup. I do not mind the smell of chicken
soup. He put the spoon down and then picked it up again.
    “I guess,” he said.
    Then I asked if someone could stay overnight on Friday. Spirals of steam rose, fogging
the kitchen windows. The water bubbled with a plop… plop…plop . The air was warm and
damp.
    “Megan?”
    I nodded.
    He threw dry Chinese noodles into the soup. They hissed and fizzled.
    “You’re sure she’s not just using you?”
    I said nothing because I didn’t know what he meant by using , as I am not a tool like
a shovel or a knife or hammer.
    “I’ll think about it,” he said.
    He continued to chop carrots with quick repetitive motions. Then he threw them into
the pot so that they plopped and splashed.
    “This Megan—what do you like about her?” he asked after a moment.
    I tried to find the words, but too many swamped my brain. Instead I counted the tiles
of the back-splash behind the sink.
    There were six rows of eight.
    Forty-eight.
    “I like that she doesn’t smell,” I said at last.
    My father inhaled. “She doesn’t smell? A lot of girls don’t smell!”
    “Some use smelly shampoos and