Trading Faces Read Online Free Page B

saw it. On the wall. A sign.
    103! 23! GET PRIMED FOR MATHLETICS !
    STAY 2 NED FOR MORE DATA !
    DATE, TIME & PLACE 2 BE ANNOUNCED !
    Hee hee! Primed? 103 and 23 are prime numbers. Those mathletes are so hilarious. I’m definitely going to be there. Clubs don’t start until the third week of school, the school manual had said. How could I wait that long? Well, it’ll give me extra time to prepare. I also planned to join GeoBee and Spelling Bee and Science Olympiad. Woo-hoo!
    We walked a little further and then . . .
    â€œPayton,” I said. “PAYTON! We’re here!”
    The gym was filled with students anxiously awaiting their schedules. We walked over and stood in theL-M-N-O line. Payton got in front of me. As I waited, I thought about how important this moment was. My schedule would organize my life for a whole school year. What if I had Math first period? That would be so great. I’d be bouncing into school each morning. Although if it were last, I could look forward to it all day! And Science? Woo-hoo! I’ll take that any time of day. Thinking about my favorite classes started to cheer me up.
    We reached the table. This was it. The moment of truth. Well, first it would be Payton’s moment of truth. I poked her in the back.
    While Payton got her schedule, I looked around. I saw Ahmad from the robotics tournament! And I recognized a girl I’d seen in the paper winning the Young Scientist Challenge. Jazmine something. Her science was pretty impressive, but I bet I could have beaten her. Gosh, I wished that the science challenge hadn’t been the same day as the spelling bee. It had looked like a blast.
    I’d never spoken to these people before. They’d always been on other school teams. They’d been the competition. That would all change this year! We were all on the same team now. This was great! I almost felt a little popular.
    â€œEmma Mills,” I said to the lady behind the table, after Payton had stepped away. The woman handed me my schedule and gave me directions to homeroom.
    â€œLet’s get to homeroom,” I said, checking the clock. We only had three minutes to get there. We could compare schedules on the way.
    â€œThe lady said room 224 is down the hall to the left,” I told Payton, starting to head out of the gym.
    â€œYou mean Room 220, to the right,” she said.
    What? I double-checked my card. Then I looked at Payton’s.
    â€œWe’re in different homerooms?” I tried not to panic. “But homeroom is alphabetical!”
    We’d been split up. Okay. Okay. I’d handle different homerooms. I looked at the schedule. Homeroom was only fifteen minutes.
    â€œIt’ll be okay.” Payton tried to make me feel better. “We’ll be together for . . .”
    I consulted the schedule. WHAT?!
    â€œFor nothing!” I said. No classes together? “NOT EVEN LUNCH!” I wailed.
    â€œDid you see those twins?” some girl said. “They look exactly alike.”
    Now people were staring at us.
    â€œYeah,” another girl said. “Except that one has a bigger nose.”
    Oh, boy. It was true. Payton got the nose. I got the ears. I patted down my hair to cover them.
    Clang! The bell.
    I couldn’t hear anything Payton was saying.
    â€œPayton, I can’t hear you amidst this chaos,” I said.
    Then I saw her hand reach out. I smiled. Our twin hand-slap. We high-fived, low-fived, bumped fists . . .
    Then I took a deep breath. We had to go. I watched Payton turn around and leave. I headed out the gym door after her.
    And turned left.

Three
    HOMEROOM
    I was the last person, alphabetically, in Homeroom 220, which put me in the last seat in the last row. This was my favorite place to sit. I could hide from the teacher and scope out everything going on in front of me.
    But this was just homeroom, so it didn’t really matter much. It’s not like the teacher