Number One Kid by Patricia Reilly Giff Page B

kids. He was a helper from college.
    Mitchell sank down against a wall. It was the end of summer. Even the bricks were hot.
    He and Habib listened to the noise inside.
    Mitchell put on the mask. He crawled over to the basement window.
    He crawled carefully. Junk was all over theground. Crushed-up Doritos. Old pens. Ants.
    Jake’s cat, Terrible Thomas, was eating Doritos. Maybe he was eating ants, too.
    Mitchell looked in the open window. It was covered with wire. Inside was the lunchroom.
    Kids raced down the aisle. They dumped their backpacks on the tables.
    The lunch lady came out with a tray. She wore a shower cap. Only her ears stuck out.
    “Snacks?” Habib said. “No one told me about that.”
    “No one told me, either,” Mitchell said.
    He tried to see what was on the tray. They were probably healthy snacks.
    But healthy snacks were better than nothing.
    “I’m starving to death,” he told Habib. “I haven’t eaten since lunch.”
    It had been a terrible lunch. Cheese poppers, bread things with cheese stuck all over them. The cheese tasted like plastic.
    Habib poked him with his arm. The poison-ivy arm.
    “Look what they’re giving out. The rest of the cheese poppers.”
    Yolanda looked up. “Hey. Someone with a mask! I think it’s a robber.”
    Someone else screamed.
    Not a robber
, Mitchell thought.
A loser
.
    That made him sad.
    He backed away.
    He and Habib crawled to another window.
    They looked in at the storeroom. It was filled with old desks.
    Angel was hopping across the desks. She waved her skinny arms. It was a good thing Ms. Katz wasn’t around to see her.
    Angel looked up and screamed.

    Mitchell jumped. The mask!
    Angel would be having nightmares tonight. Screaming like a baboon.
    He sighed and lifted the mask. “It’s just me. And Habib.”
    “Whew.” She stopped hopping.“Did you sign up for the Center?” She narrowed her eyes. “Mom said—”
    “Don’t worry.” Mitchell crossed his fingers. “I’m in.”
    “You don’t look in to me.” She waved her arms. “I’m practicing. Afternoon Center has swimming. It’s at the Y.”
    She leaped across a desk. “They’re giving prizes. Next Monday. I want to win one.”
    A prize! He’d never won a prize. Not unless you counted a monkey on a stick. He’d won it at the carnival.
    It had fallen apart in two minutes.
    What if he could win a prize?
    That monster Peter Petway would say he was terrific.

    “Let’s go sign up,” he told Habib.
    They went into the gym.
    Ms. Katz smiled. “I thought you’d forgotten.” She looked at the slip. “Your mother signed you up for a lot of things.”

    It wasn’t his mother. It was Angel.
    First his mom had signed the slip. Then Angel must have filled in a bunch of stuff.
    “Ballroom dancing.” Ms. Katz poked at her glasses. “Nature. Swimming. Opera? Can you sing?”
    Wait till he saw Angel.
    “I’ll put a check next to Homework Help,” Ms. Katz said. “You could use it. And you, too, Habib.”
    They rushed to the lunchroom.
    A girl from his class was helping out.
    Mitchell remembered. Her name was Destiny Washington. On Friday she’d had a braid down her back.
    Today she had a white stripe in her bangs. She looked like a friendly skunk.
    “My mother is a hairdresser,” she had told him.
    Destiny gave Habib four poppers. She gave Mitchell only three. “I’m running out,” she said. “Sorry.”
    “Don’t worry,” Mitchell said.

    “Hold your nose while you eat,” Habib told him. “You won’t smell the plastic.”
    Mitchell held his nose with two fingers. He took a bite. “It works!” he told Habib.
    He sat there and chewed. Maybe the prize was a gold medal. Or silver.
    Maybe it was a trip to Japan … right around the icebergs.
    He might take Angel with him. “You’re the best,” she’d say.
    But how could you win if you weren’t good at anything?
    How could you win if you were a loser?
    Even Angel kept calling him Number Eighty-seven.
    He shoved another