Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff

soccer balls, and the rest of them lined up, almost falling over each other.
    It was the chance Sam had been waiting for. Telling Caroline what he'd found out was almost as good as knowing it himself.
    He watched while a soccer game started and kids began to choose up sides for a baseball game. “Come on, MacKenzie,” Eric yelled. “We need you at third base.”
    “Too hot,” he called back. “Sorry.” He went to look for Caroline.
    She was leaning up against the Cyclone fence, her finger in her book to mark her place.
    “The Thousand Islands,” he said. “Not ten thousand. They're in the St. Lawrence River.” The words tumbled out as if he couldn't say them fast enough. “I should have known.”
    She was turned away from him, staring out at the street. “I'm glad you found that much.” Her voice sounded odd.
    He moved around to see her face. She wasn't crying, but she had been. Her eyes were swollen, the lids pink, and her golden eyelashes were clumped together, darker than usual.
    “You left the notebook in the workroom,” he said, holding it out.
    She reached for it absently and put it in her pocket.
    “We're almost ready to put the roofs on the castle.” He was hardly thinking of what he was saying. “I just want to paint the room I made for you.” He stopped and began again. “We can do some of it this afternoon.”
    She took her finger out of her book; it closed with a tiny snap. “Go away, Sam-I-Am. Please.”
    Had he heard her right? He reached back, poking his fingers into the fence's chain links. “What is it? What's the matter?” he asked, even though he was sure he knew.
    “I told you I had no time for friends.” Her eyes welled up with tears, and she turned away from the yard to face the fence again. Her voice was muffled. “Why did you want me to be your friend?”
    He didn't know what to say. How could he say it was because he wanted her to read the papers in the box? Howcould he say it was the castle? How could he say it had just happened? And that afterward, being her friend was as important as everything else? More important. “You're leaving, aren't you?”
    She sounded breathless. “Sunday.”
    “But tomorrow's Saturday.” He stopped. “We haven't finished the castle.”
    “And we don't know all about you. Listen, my mother pulled the suitcases out last night. Most of the boxes were never unpacked.”
    The kids were yelling as they played ball, and Mrs. Stanek stood in front of the brick wall of the school, her eyes closed. He wished he could yell at everyone to stop, yell at them to do something.
    He kept shaking his head as Caroline spoke. “We'll roll up the sheets and the blankets, put everything from the medicine cabinet in a plastic bag.” Her bracelets jangled against each other. “We've done all this before. But my father promised it's the last time. He's going to teach sunsets instead of drawing them. He promised.”
    She brushed at her face. “On Monday, I'll be in a new school, the third this year.”
    “But the castle.”
Bringing it to school. The two of them putting it on the table in the back of the room. What
Mrs.
Stanek might have said, what the kids would have said. The new kid and the kid who could hardly read had done this. The best project in the room, the first time for him.
    A
ball bounced across the yard toward them, and hepicked it up and tossed it back. “Come with me first this afternoon. We'll finish the castle. You'll take it with you.”
    Who cared about what the class thought? She could have the castle, keep it in her room, she'd remember—
    “Oh, Sam, I have to help my mother.” She walked away from him, keeping close to the fence, her back straight. She was crying again.
    He wanted to go after her, or call after her, but he didn't know what to say. Mack had told him once,
“Onji always knows what to say, but it's hard for me.”
    Mrs. Stanek blew her whistle; it was time to go in.
    “You're going to miss the medieval feast,” he