Schooled

Although Darryl and the other students assume the ambulance is for Capricorn, it’s actually for Rain. She is being released from the rehabilitation center and she insists on heading straight to the middle school to pick up her grandson.

They stop at the Donnelly house to pick up Capricorn’s things and say goodbye to Mrs. Donnelly and Sophie. Mrs. Donnelly is at work, but Sophie is there to help him pack. As he walks away, Sophie calls out after him, “It was real, it was fun, but it wasn’t real fun” (148). Capricorn thinks, “It seemed fitting that the last thing she said to me was something I didn’t understand” (148).

When Capricorn gets back to Garland farm, he’s surprised to see that it looks smaller than he remembers, and the “colors and textures seemed very bland compared to the warm and bright bricks and stuccos of the houses around C Average” (149). 

Back from a successful conference, where he has been all but promised the position of principal at North High in a few years time, Mr. Kasigi is troubled to see a number of letters from Consolidated Savings Bank marked “Urgent.”

He soon realizes that not only has Capricorn been giving the money earmarked for the Halloween dance to charity, he has also overdrawn the account.