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truth?”
    Her mom smiled. “Listen to this, Cara. It’s from the book of Psalms.”
    M ERCY AND TRUTH ARE MET TOGETHER; RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PEACE HAVE KISSED
EACH OTHER. RUTH SHALL SPRING OUT OF THE EARTH; AND RIGHTEOUSNESS SHALL LOOK DOWN FROM HEAVEN.
    Her mother smiled at her and said, “Truth is good, and it’s all right to let the truth be known. But when you are publishing all that truth, just be sure there’s some mercy, too. Then you’ll be okay.”
    At that quiet moment, safe at home, it all sounded so simple to Cara Landry. But the test would come on Monday.

CHAPTER 6
TOP STRESS CAUSE FOR KIDS? ONE WORD: FEAR
    AS CARA SAT in health class on Monday afternoon, she was sweating. She never sweated, not even during gym. But this wasn’t a hot sweat. It was a dry, sticky-mouthed sweat. A scared sweat.
    It was also a mad-at-herself sweat. Cara hated feeling like a coward. She fumed at herself. “But that’s what I am: a big, fat coward.”
    Her mom had dropped her off at school early that morning. Cara had wanted to be there before the other kids arrived. She wanted to give a note to Mr. Larson.
    Cara had spent most of Sunday night working on the note. She had ripped up about twenty pieces of paper trying to get it right. She practically knew it by heart:
    Dear Mr. Larson:
    I want to say I’m sorry for the part of The Landry News that was about you. Maybe I should not have surprised you by just sticking it up on the wall like that for everyone else to read. It’s just that I like making newspapers. I try to print only what’s true, but I guess sometimes I don’t think enough about how that can make people feel.
    I mean, I still think that what I said was pretty true, but I didn’t mean to make you mad like that. So, I’m sorry.
    Sincerely yours,
    Cara L. Landry
    At seven-thirty that morning Cara had been on her way through the halls, her shoes squeaking on the newly waxed floors. Cara had the note in her hand. She turned the comer, and there he was, coming out of room 145. As he turned to go the other way, toward the teachers’ room, Cara wanted to call out, “Hey, Mr. Larson!” and then run right over, smile a little, and hand him the note. Instead she turned to stone, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She flattened up against the lockers, then backed around the comer, making sure her rubber soles didn’t squeak. She jammed the note into the pocket of her dress and ran out the nearest door to the playground.
    All day long she had skulked around, making sure that wherever she was, Mr. Larson wasn’t. LeeAnn had come with Betsy Lowenstein and three other girls to sit with her at lunch, and Cara had hardly said three words, she was so mad at herself. She just sat there like an idiot, chewing on her lower lip, and nodding and smiling once in a while as LeeAnn went on and on about how mad Mr. Larson had been on Friday.
    But in ten minutes, there would be no escape. Unless . . . no. If she went to the nurse, the nurse would call her mom at her office, so that wouldn’t work. And if she didn’t go to class, then Mr. Larson would know she was a coward, and Joey DeLucca and LeeAnn Ennis would know she was a coward. And worst of all, Cara thought, “I would know that I am the biggest, fattest, weakest, lamest, chickenest coward who ever lived.”
    So when the bell rang, Cara Landry, the secret coward with the cold sweats, put on her bravest face and walked like a robot down the hall and into room 145.

CHAPTER 7
FANS BRACE FOR GRUDGE MATCH
    AS THE BELL rang someone else was sweating. The tall man in the rumpled sport coat hunched lower in his chair, holding his newspaper a little higher than usual. He was staring at the batting averages, but he saw nothing except the image of a little girl in a brown plaid skirt, scared out of her wits, biting her lower lip. This was the same image he had seen all weekend