I finished cleaning up and started walking away from the art room. I said bye to Ludwig and I started to walk back home.

"Hey, Feli, wait up!"

I turned around and I saw Gil running toward me. "Geez," he said, "don't leave me behind!"

"Um . . ."

"Science project," he said. "Today? Your place?"

"Oh, yeah!" I said, brightening. "I forgot!"

"Well . . . okay then," he said. "I'll just follow you. Are your folks home?"

"Eliza and stepfather . . . yeah, they're at home," I said.

"Cool," he said. "Let's get goin'!"

"Stepfather!" I called when I walked in the door with Gil behind me. "Stepmother! I'm back!"

Eliza came around the corner. "Hi, Feli," she said. "Hello . . . Gilbert?"

"Yep," Gil said carelessly, kicking off his shoes. "The one and only Prussian in the nation."

Eliza looked confused. "What's Prussia? Do you mean Russia?"

Gil rolled his eyes. "Well, Prussia doesn't really exist anymore, but it's still the most awesome country ever."

Eliza still seemed confused. Stepfather came out of the music room.

"Good afternoon, Feliciano," he said to me. "And you are . . . ?"

"Gilbert, the most awesome person you will ever meet."

Stepfather stared at him and raised an eyebrow. "I see. I hope that you two accomplish what you set out to accomplish."

And then he went back into the music room.

"Okay," said Gil with a shrug. "Hey, Feli, let's go up to your room, yeah?"

I nodded. "We'll be upstairs!" I told Eliza.

She smiled. "Well, you two have fun, and, um . . . I hope that you two accomplish what you set out to accomplish." She winked.

Gil laughed and we went upstairs.

"Your stepdad's kind of a prick," he said when I had closed the door.

"Um . . ." I said. "I dunno what that means."

"Doesn't matter," he said, dropping his backpack on the floor. "Nice room—whoa, who the hell did that!?"

He was pointing to the painting hanging above my bed; the portrait of me.

"Don't tell me you made this," he said, laughing a little bit. "I've seen your paintings, Feli, and they're way better than this. I mean, it's better than anything I could do with a brush, but still . . ."

"Oh, Ludwig made that," I said.

He stopped laughing. "Oh."

Then he started laughing again.

"Are you making fun of him?" I said, frowning. "He worked really hard on that . . ."

He stopped laughing again. "Okay, okay, give me a minute."

I started taking out my stuff. "So . . . what are we doing again?"

Gil looked at me. "Shit, I thought you knew, Feli."

I shook my head. Gil sighed and looked back at the painting.

"Whatever," he said. "Y'know, he's really sweet on you."

"What?"

"Luddie," he said. "He really likes you, even if he does keep those magazines under his bed. He thinks I don't know, but he doesn't know what I get up to when he's out of the house."

"Um . . ."

"Oh, right," he said, looking back at me. "Naïve. Uh, forget what I said. Don't tell anyone, seriously. Moving on . . ."

"I think I have the thing written down here," I said. I started looking in my backpack and then I heard the song "Can't Get Enough of You Baby".

"Uh, hold on," he said, taking his cell phone out of his pocket. Speaking into it, he said "Hey, you've reached Best Time of Your Life, the number one phone sex hotline in the world! If you want regular sex, press 69. If you want it weird, press pound to reach our specialist on everything from ropes to handcuffs to spanking! If you called because you're lonely and desperate, hang up right now because we don't have time for your shit."

He paused and then laughed. "No, Mattie, wait, don't hang up! It's me! That was a joke!"

He paused again. "Okay, sorry . . . yeah, we're still on for tomorrow . . . awesome . . . why is Al cheering? . . . Oh, okay . . . Love you. Bye."

He hung up the phone. "Apparently," he said, sitting down, "Alfie's got a date with Mei on Sunday."

"Oh, good for them!" I said. "Hey, I found it!" I held up the paper that our assignment was written on.

"Great," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's get started!"

"So . . ." I looked at the paper. "We're doing cell res—cell res—cell breathing."

He looked at the paper. "Oh, that's cell resp—I mean, uh—you're right, cell breathing."

"Do you know how it works?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Luddie's pretty good at this stuff," he said. "I can ask him to help out later. How about your bro? Is he good at this?"

"Lovi says biology is stupid," I said.

"Oh."

"We have a computer we can use," I suggested. "If Eliza or stepfather aren't using it . . ."

"Great!" he said. "Let's get this shit on the road, then!"