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say, I wasn’t. I was looking at the teacher and he sits in front of me. It was weird.
    I kind of wish I hadn’t said anything.
    But Ronald shrugs and looks back over at the table.
    Jared says, Who’s that other guy they’re sitting with?
    I say, Sean,
    kind of blurting it out.
    Then I say, He’s in my French class. He’s okay.
    Jared says, He looks older.
    I look at my pizza and nod.
    Miss Rayner told me once I had to use more descriptive words in a story, especially when talking about characters. She said I needed to learn to Paint a Picture.
    Miss Rayner is my English teacher. I like her all right.
    Here’s me Painting a Picture:
    Victor is about my height, almost exactly my age. I know because I heard him talking about what he got for his birthday last year and he said his birthday was December 16. Mine is December 31.
    He has slick black hair, parted on one side. Some of his bangs cover his left eye. His eyes are dark, dark brown, just short of black. He has darker skin, like a permanent tan. He wears oversize shirts because he thinks he’s too skinny, but you can tell he’s athletic.
    He walks with sort of a swagger, the kind that people have when they think other people are watching them. Every day he wears the same dark red Nikes.
    Tristan is taller and definitely athletic. He has red lips and pale skin, light brown hair, gray eyes. His cheekbones are really high, and his mouth is always a bit parted. Kelly Ramirez says he looks like a model. Maybe he is.
    Tristan always looks annoyed to me, or maybe bored. Except when he’s laughing at me. He wears a lot of polo shirts and fitted jeans, not those baggy clothes. Probably to show off his muscles or whatever.
    He’s always getting in trouble at school for having his phone. He’s pretty dumb about it. The school won’t let you take your cell out during the day except for emergencies, and if a teacher sees it, they confiscate it and you have to pay like twenty bucks to get it back at the end of the day. He uses it in the hallways all the time, probably texting girls or something, right in front of teachers. He’s even done it in class. He has to pay to get it back like once a week and he doesn’t seem to care.
    His parents probably have a lot of money.
    Fuller has a shaved head. He has kind of a pointy nose and sloped forehead. Girls still go after him. He always has a girl around, though not as many as Tristan.
    I don’t remember what kind of stuff he wears. Fuller is the least memorable person at our school. For me. I don’t know why.
    Miss Rayner is in her mid-forties, so not young like Mrs. Ferguson but not as old as Mr. Gardings, who teaches Algebra and is like ninety. He has a hearing aid and shuffles around in class all day in checkered suspenders and a bow tie, like he doesn’t know it isn’t 1940 anymore.
    Miss Rayner is pretty tall, almost as tall as Jared, and keeps her hair in a ponytail and wears jeans with a T-shirt tucked in every day. She speaks in a loud voice with a thick southern accent and smiles a lot.
    She had a husband who taught at another school, but he left her for one of his former students. That’s what all the kids say, anyway.
    That’s why she is Miss and not Mrs.
    The weather report says clear skies all day when I check Saturday morning, so I take Charlie on a walk.
    Sometimes I like to go for a walk, either by myself or with Toby or with Charlie or all three of us, just walking around.
    I don’t feel like being around another person on Saturday so I take Charlie. We walk up to the park, him sniffing the ground most of the way and pulling right and left on the leash when he thinks he smells something, tail always up and wagging slowly, back and forth, back and forth.
    I like watching him when we walk, because he’s always so excited to be anywhere and it makes me laugh sometimes thinking about how easily he gets to be happy.
    We pass along the creek for a few blocks and then get to the park, making a big circle around