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application of it. I slammed down my book.
    â€œCan we go riding?”
    Coyote looked up from his reading. “It’s Tuesday.”
    â€œSo what?”
    â€œSo we ride on Fridays, after you’ve passed your tests.”
    â€œI need to get away. I don’t understand this.”
    Coyote put down his book and looked at my math problem. “You’ve always had it easy, haven’t you? Never had to work to understand material?”
    â€œI guess.” Up until now math had been mostly memorization and simple problems. But now I was studying geometry and trying to apply geometric concepts to word problems.
    â€œIt was the same for me. I didn’t have a super memory like you, but I was so smart I never had to study. Then when I went to college and my classes were harder I didn’t know how to study because I’d never needed to before.”
    He pulled out a sheet of paper. “The best thing I can teach you is how to study. We’ll do the first problem together, then you do the rest while I watch.”
    He guided me through it, showing me how to apply the formula to the problem. I finished the assignment and Coyote felt sorry for me and we rode our bikes afterward for half an hour.
    Coyote was the closest thing I had to a friend those three years. I’d lost touch with the few ones I’d had at Pascal Elementary and was beginning to feel like an outcast. Coyote taught me things that had nothing to do with studying. He taught me how to get a soda from the machine with just one quarter, how to play desk football with wads of paper, and how to play poker, which he consistently beat me at. He yelled when I got annoying. He made me feel normal again.
    He was also the one who told me I should leave the Institute. “I know you think Dr. Anderson is some kind of god. I’m as big a fan as you are. But you can continue meeting with him and go to school. You don’t want to miss out on high school,” he said. “It’s the common American experience, the hell that binds us together, the fact that we all suffer through it and live to tell about it later. You’ll regret it if you don’t go.”
    So I planned to switch back to school in tenth grade, but when Dink got out, our plans changed and I went back a year earlier. I miss Coyote and Dr. Anderson, but what I miss most is the bike riding. When I left the Institute I was hoping they’d give me the bike I’d been using, since my old one at home was too small for me. No one ever offered. Mom says she’ll buy me a new one when she gets a few paychecks under her belt. In the meantime I have to hoof it.
    Coyote also gave me some advice before I left. “Whatever you do, don’t raise your hand the first six months at school. Even if you know the answer.”
    He knew that would be hard for me, so he gave me a piece of tape. “Pretend it’s on your mouth when you’re tempted,” he said.
    When I told him we were moving to northern Minnesota he laughed. “With that badass tan and those biker legs, the girls are going to fight over who sits next to you.”
    There’s only one girl I want to sit next to. So far, neither my tan nor my legs have impressed her. And the tape? I keep it in my pocket as a reminder.

Good Dreams versus Bad Dreams
    I’m staring at the green wall of my bedroom, unable to sleep. Pushing down memories all day is hard work. At night, when I’m tired, they run rampant, like a dam with a crack in it. The memories seep through when all I want is to shut them off for a while, to escape into the oblivion of quiet. Someday, the whole dam will burst.
    On top of that, I worry. A lot. There’s Mom, who I worry will die while I’m still young because she smokes behind my back. There’s Dink, who I worry will find us. And then who knows what he’ll do to me?
    Then there’s the worry that my brain will leak if I can’t find a way to