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class
     and put me on a better track to becoming an officer. What was I thinking? Why would
     the Republic want such a rebellious soldier as one of their officers? At this rate,
     I’ll be lucky to make it through my first year without getting suspended, and I’m
     sure I’ll run into that boy again. What do I do next time?
    “Hey,” somebody whispers from the row behind me. “Kid.” I turn around. It’s a girl
     with two long braids tied back into a bun behind her head.
    “Hi,” I whisper.
    “I saw what you did out there in the quad today.” She smiles. “Nice job. I didn’t
     think I’d ever see a twelve-year-old get the better of someone like Patrick Stanson.”
    Her words lift my mood a little, and despite my report, I sit up straighter in my
     chair and smile back. “Thanks,” I reply. “I don’t think Drake will want to see me
     doing that again, though.”
    “Are you kidding?” The girl laughs and nudges her friend. “You heard it was posted
     in the classroom, right?” Her friend nods.
    “What are you talking about?” I ask.
    “Rumor has it that your name’s been added to the class Intermediate Defense 231. Some
     people saw it on their updated attendance rosters in their course tablets.” She waits
     for a second, as if to see my reaction, but when I just continue staring blankly at
     her, she sighs and makes a circular gesture with one hand. “
Intermediate
Defense. You know that class is only for sophomores, right?”
    I blink.
Only for sophomores.
Had the young officer who’d sent me off to my dean secretary put in a word for me?
     Had she actually seen something in me, something I’d been trying to put on display?
     I think back to that hint of admiration on her face, her hesitation at scolding me
     in the end. Maybe what I did was a good idea after all. I smile in the darkness of
     the classroom. “Thanks for the heads-up,” I tell the girl gratefully. “Otherwise I’m
     pretty sure I would’ve gone to the wrong lecture hall tomorrow.”
    The class ends—the professor dismisses us, and the girl’s friends all rise and start
     making their way out of their aisle. The girl looks at me again and shrugs. “No problem,”
     she says with a smile. Before I can reply, she utters a quick “Bye!” and scurries
     off to join her group. I watch her go for a second.
    My happiness fades. I’m grateful to her for the moment of friendship, but a moment
isn’t
friendship . . . and as I adjust my own bag across my shoulders and head into the
     hall, I come to the slow realization that this might never change. I’m twelve years
     old. Everyone else in my class is at least sixteen. No matter how nice some of them
     are to me, who’s going to want a twelve-year-old tagging along with them? What could
     I possibly talk with them about? What would I have in common with any of them?
I don’t have anything in common with them,
I admit to myself as I step back into the glare of the afternoon sun. And when all’s
     said and done, I’m pretty sure I will be spending the next four years alone.
    My coping instinct kicks in.
I have to skip a grade.
I’d skip all of them, if I could. The faster, the better, and then I can get out
     of here. I can leave and then I can finally find my group of friends. Even though
     I try to brush off this train of thinking, knowing it makes no sense, that it’s all
     illogical, I can’t help feeling some sort of weird reassurance from it. If I start
     over again . . . if I just have one more try at a new school or environment, with
     new people . . .
    I start to run. I run until my feet fly off the ground and my breath comes out in
     ragged, desperate gasps. I run all the way across the campus until I reach the edge
     where other students are being picked up and dropped off.
    I just want to go home.

    “So,” Metias says to me later that night as I lounge alone on our living room couch
     and watch an old cartoon. He hands me a mug of hot chocolate.