It was one of those hazy, hot afternoons when there was nothing I wanted to do. A Friday, too, so I didn’t even have homework. I got home from school, dumped my backpack on the floor, and flopped onto my bed. I flicked on my portable fan for some cool air and stared at the ceiling for a while. Not that there was anything to look at, mind. When I was little I had those glow-in-the-dark stars glued to my ceiling, but they’d fallen off some time ago, leaving their faint outlines in dust.

After a while, I pulled a small metal puzzle box out of my pocket and fiddled with it absently. I had a whole shelf of them, little trinkets my parents bought me in science museums and souvenir shops. They weren’t much, just sets of triangles you had to fit together or a tiny maze, but they were still entertaining several times over since I nearly always forgot how I’d solved them before.

I was on the verge of getting something to eat from the kitchen when Dean chose that moment to pop his head into my open bedroom window and call out, “Busy, McPepper?”

I jumped a few inches off my bed in surprise and stuffed the puzzle back into my pocket. “Geez, man! Mind knocking?”

Dean laughed, climbed through the window, and perched on the arm of my recliner across the room. “So what’s up?” he asked.

I sat up and shrugged. “Bored. What are you doing here, your mom kick you out again?”

He laughed again, an airy, carefree sort of laugh that might have sounded girly had it been from anyone else. “No, Hatch invited me over. Thought I’d see if you wanted to come.”

I gulped. “Margaret Hatch?”

Dean raised an eyebrow at me with a smirk and nodded once.

I ran a hand through my short, curly hair. “Well, I suppose I could fit it in to my schedule…If it means that much to you, of course.”

He saw me and his smirk turned into another laugh. “Alright, let’s go.”

“Hold on,” I said. I shuffled to the doorway of my bedroom and called out, “Mom, I’m going over to Dean’s, okay?”

“You’d better get your room cleaned first!” came the shrill answer.

I turned around and groaned. I had laundry all over the floor in piles – clean or dirty I had no idea – stacks of books, game cartridges scattered on the shelves where the books belonged, and pieces of an old science project I’d accidentally stepped on last week and hadn’t picked up.

Dean surveyed the scene with me, unconcerned. “Just shove it all under your bed,” he suggested.

“No room under there,” I said. “Closet’s pretty full too.” Most the hiding space in my room was taken up by old train sets and wooden models I’d never finished. It looked grim. “Maybe I can just pick some stuff up really quick…and Mom will want me to vacuum too – ”

“Come on, man,” Dean said, heading back toward the window. “The future Mrs. Clark won’t wait all day!”

I scowled, then returned his grin and followed him outside.