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going to tell her how to stop the trouble.
    â€œI’m counting.” RB smiled, so proud of himself.
    â€œWhat?” she screeched.
    â€œI’m counting. You know: one, two, three . . . It makes me calm down.
    â€œThat’s what you gotta do, Del. You gotta count,” he told her, like he’d solved everything.
    â€œRB.” She was talking through her teeth. “I’m in trouble up to my eyeballs, and you think I should count?”
    â€œYep,” he said surely.
    â€œRB, bed,” Boomer called.
    He slid off from beside her. “Will you try?” he asked.
    She shrugged.
    â€œDel, please?” And the tears were two seconds away.
    â€œOkay,” she agreed, just so somebody else wouldn’t be sobbing because of her.
    He put his face close to hers. “I know you can do it,” he whispered.
    â€œRB?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œOne, two, three . . . ” She counted, like Clarice did when somebody had till ten before trouble.
    And he was gone.
    â€œCounting.” Delly spit the word. “I’d rather eat worm sandwiches.”
    In the dark, she tried to think of something else she could do to be Dellyifferent. “They could tie me up,” she said. “Then I couldn’t fight.” But she couldn’t eat or do her homework, either.
    â€œThey could keep me in my room forever,” she suggested. Clarice wouldn’t leave her alone in the house, though, since she parachuted off the porch roof.
    â€œForget it. There’s no fixing me.” She gave up again.
    Till she remembered Clarice crying. “Chizzle,” she murmured.
    Because Delly could take people calling her names or being sent to a special school. Everybody in the world could give up on her. Except Clarice.
    â€œRB only counts when he gets worked up. That’s hardly ever. I’ll have to do it every bawlgram second,” she complained.
    But there was Clarice, her eyes still asking.
    â€œAll right, I’ll count,” she told the darkness. And that’s how she went to sleep. “One bawlgrammit, two bawlgrammit . . . ”

Chapter 18
    T hat’s how she woke up, too.
    She brushed her teeth counting, trudged downstairs counting, crunched her cereal counting.
    She counted as Galveston growled at her, “I heard about you. You’d better shape up.”
    â€œFive hundred sixty-seven, five hundred sixty-eight, five hundred sixty-nine,” her mouth mumbled, while her fingers curled into fists.
    â€œGalveston,” Clarice called, “get over here,” and pulled her from the table. So the numbers were not truly tested.
    She counted to herself on the way to school. “What are you doing?” RB asked her.
    She didn’t stop.
    â€œYou’re counting,” he cheered. Then he sang it, “You’re counting, you’re counting.
    â€œIs it working?” he wondered.
    She shrugged.
    â€œIt’s working! You can stay. You can stay.” He ran around her, singing that.
    And Delly didn’t tell him, “Don’t count on it,” because it was good to see somebody happy, even if it wasn’t her.
    Lionel Terwilliger had to ask her every question twice: once for her to quit counting, and again for her to hear it.
    Then, for one sweet moment, there were no numbers. But as soon as she answered, “A spider is an arthropod, not an anthropologist,” she’d start again.
    It was the most boring morning ever, and when Delly imagined a lifetime of counting, it was like living death. “I can’t,” she rasped.
    Till she remembered Clarice. “Four thousand seven hundred thirty-two, four thousand seven hundred thirty-three . . . ” She kept on.
    At recess, she took herself to Alaska. “What the glub am I going to look at?” she asked the State of Seclusion.
    Because Delly’d done some thinking. There were two ways, she decided, she kept ending up in Trouble Town. One was