TRAVIS JENKINS and me lean against the oak tree on the corner at the Baker Street bus stop. Leaning makes us look way cooler than just standing would.

"I found your math book underneath a bus seat yesterday afternoon, Eric. How'd you get your homework done last night, huh?" Emily Monterey has morphed into a second mother. Like I need another mom.

I tug on my left earlobe. It hurts worse than the time I fell off my skateboard riding down the stairs in front of the library and rammed my front teeth through my bottom lip. Ever since Lily Lee pierced it with an ice cube and a needle on Saturday afternoon, it's never been right. If it doesn't quit swelling up, I'm going to pull the goddamned golden hoop out — it makes me look more like a pirate than a gangsta anyhow.

"Maybe I didn't do the friggin' math homework — so sue me." I know how to sound meaner than my backyard neighbor's dog when I hang out too close to the fence. But Emily is sensitive when it comes to backtalk; even though I snap at her so she'll chill with the lecturing, I wink so she doesn't have a meltdown.

The wink works too good — Emily keeps right on yapping. "Mark my words, Eric, you're so going to get another detention for not passing it in."

She points this out like I don't already know how shit works with Mr. Carr. What Emily doesn't know is I wouldn't have a clue how to do the math problems even if I had my math book. Maybe I forgot it on the bus accidentally on purpose.

"Whatever," I say, and I yawn so nobody thinks I give a shit if I flunk out. Then I step right up behind the girls who're standing on the sidewalk next to the Kinkaids' fancy painted mailbox. I unzip Emily's backpack and pull out my math book, even though I wish it had disappeared like anything good I ever left on the bus did before — like my headphones and my baseball glove.

And right now it's as if my eyes got minds all their own. They make me look past Emily and up the walkway at the huge yellow house, and at Joey. As usual his butt is planted on his front doorstep, and, as usual, he's got his nose stuck in a book. Joey Kinkaid, the genius of the eighth grade, could've helped me figure out how to do my math problems last night, and I know this for a fact because I know Joey like I know too-hot pizza will burn the skin off the roof of my mouth and make it tingle for three days.

Why can't I turn off my brain when the memories of how it used to be with the Baker Street kids and Joey start playing like a movie in my head?

"Chase me!" Joey yells, and Emily and Travis and Lily and me run after him down Baker Street. We all make fish faces and wave our arms around 'cause Joey says we're really sea creatures swimming in the ocean.

Like always Emily runs too close on Joey's heels. All I can do is hold my breath and wait for her to give him a flat tire, and like always, it makes Joey trip on his dress and fall flat on his face. After me and Travis help him up and dust the pebbles off his knees, Emily shouts, "Don't blame me — I can't help it I run up the back of Joey's legs! I run the fastest 'cause I'm the only one who's already turned seven around here!"

I think Em's just mad 'cause she never gets to be the Little Mermaid.

When we used to chase Joey around the neighborhood, he'd start singing about how he wanted to be part of our world, and it was like he almost turned into Princess Ariel for real. It made me forget he was Joey — I really thought he was the girl who had everything.

I can't be daydreaming in public about how Joey was our princess, so I shake my head a couple of times. When my mind comes back to the real world at the Baker Street bus stop, Travis is giving him crap. "Hey, Josie! Whatcha reading?" When Travis calls him Josie, it twists me up inside.

Joey glances up from his paperback book and tilts his head, so there's no doubt he heard Travis's question. A whoosh of breath gushes out of my mouth, and I hope Travis doesn't hear because he'll say I care. And I can't care about Joey anymore, but I also can't miss that he's still as pretty as he was when we were kids and hung out together every day after school, except for Tuesdays, when he had clarinet lessons. Back then his light-blond hair fell loose and scraggly around his shoulders, but now he wears it combed real neat and held back with a soft black hairband. Somehow that velvety band pulling his hair off his face makes his eyes and nose look round and cute and innocent, like a baby seal's in a National Geographic magazine ... and his lips are so damned pink. There's no other way to slice it — Joey looks more like somebody's sweet little sister than ever, even if he's thirteen now and wears nerdy boys' clothes instead of his mom's dress.

"Answer me, Kinkaid!" Travis demands, his eyes bulging and his face turning red. If Joey wasn't sitting on his doorstep, and if we all didn't know his mom was watching out the window like his guardian angel, Travis would be up in Joey's face. "Answer me, or I'm gonna make you eat dirt!"

"Why do you care so much 'bout what he's reading?" I ask Travis, but my voice comes out sounding too high and shaky for my own safety. Everybody knows when you're calling another kid out, you got to sound like you got balls. Lily gawks at me like I'm from Pluto — and it's not even a planet anymore — because Travis has grown to be the biggest dude in the whole eighth grade by a mile, and nobody messes with him. He's as strong as The Rock, and worse, he's a hothead — like "punch first, think later" is his life's motto. But I've known him longer than anybody else in Wild Acres, and once in a while, he still listens to me.

Not this time, though — Travis is pissed off at me now. He grabs me by my third-day-of-school new white T-shirt and shoves me backward, hard. I live ready for moments like this, so I don't stumble, but I already know I'm not going to push my luck anymore. "Maybe I wanna know what a genius reads when he's hiding on his doorstep like a big wuss." He squawks a couple times like a chicken. "What's it to you anyhow, Sinclair?"

"It's nothing." I don't spend too much time defending Joey from the entire student body of Wild Acres Middle School anymore. Back in seventh grade, I used to try to look out for him sometimes, but it didn't take long until I figured out it was a total waste of energy. On a Monday I could tell everybody "Joey's not a princess" until I was blue in the face, and then on Tuesday he'd show up at school wearing nail polish and a charm bracelet, and he'd be the princess of the middle school again. Mom always says, "God helps those who help themselves," and since Joey Kinkaid isn't doing himself any favors, why the hell should I?

Too bad I can't forget what a perfect kind of princess Joey made when we played together on Baker Street. ...

"I am going to swim up to the surface now." Princess Ariel says it like she's a teacher giving directions to the orange group — loud and clear and slow — and I know it's time for me to be Prince...