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who’d started rocking himself.
    Only Sandeep stopped to talk to him. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. He sounded embarrassed. “But is there anything I can do to help?”
    The driver shook his head no. His cheeks were wet from crying.
    Sandeep put his arm under the driver’s shoulder and helped him back into his seat. “I’m going to call for help,” he told him. “And I’ll wait with you till someone comes.”
    Georgie smacked Sandeep’s arm as we got off the bus. “Suck-up!” Georgie muttered.
    â€œAt least now raghead’s got a friend,” Pierre added.
    Sandeep winced. I was starting to regret I’d ever called him raghead. I hadn’t expected the name to stick.
    The driver was hunched over in hisseat, his head in his hands. Sandeep patted his back like he was a baby.
    The whole thing was sad and funny at the same time. Maybe more sad than funny. I turned back to look at the driver before I stepped off the bus. “Take care, man,” I whispered.
    But I couldn’t tell whether or not he’d heard me.

chapter ten
    Lance Armstrong was my idea. “Even after he had cancer, the guy won the Tour de France—seven times,” I’d told Sandeep.
    Mr. Adams had paired Sandeep and me up for the modern-day heroes project. We had to choose a hero and then present him—or her—to the class.
    Sandeep and I were having trouble agreeing on a hero. We’d been discussing it since last period. We’d walked out of school together and now, since we were lined upnext to each other at the bus stop, we’d picked up the conversation again. “Some people say Lance Armstrong took steroids,” Sandeep said. “Heroes don’t take drugs.”
    Sandeep had a point.
    But I wasn’t ready to give up quite so easily. “Just because people say something, doesn’t make it true. Besides, heroes don’t have to be perfect.”
    â€œThey don’t have to be perfect; they have to be decent—and fair,” Sandeep said. “If he did use steroids, it wouldn’t have been fair to the other cyclists. What about Tenzing Norgay? He was the Nepalese mountaineer who reached the summit of Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary on May 29, 1953.”
    â€œHow do you know stuff like that?”
    â€œI like trivia. And I have a good memory.”
    â€œIf we do Tenzing Norgay, then why not Edmund Hillary too? Mr. Adams said one hero only per group. So that pretty much rules out old Tenzing.”
    The bus pulled up to the curb. Jake had fallen asleep during English, so Mr. Adamskept him in after class, but now I spotted him rushing out of the building. He waved in my direction.
    â€œLook,” I told Sandeep, taking a few steps away from him, “let’s both do some more research tonight. Then we can talk about it again tomorrow—in class.”
    Sandeep’s eyes met mine. “I see,” he said.
    Jake clapped me on the shoulder. “So you and raghead hanging out now?”
    I took another step away from Sandeep. “Nah,” I said, “we got stuck together on that English project is all. We’re still deciding on a hero.”
    Georgie’s music was blaring when we got on the bus. Pierre had already pried open the ceiling window. Kelly, who’d been chewing gum, blew a big pink bubble that somehow ended up bursting in Jewel’s hair. “You get it out of my hair this instant!” Jewel shouted.
    â€œI can’t. It’s stuck!” Then Kelly started laughing hysterically.
    â€œYou could try rubbing ice on it,” Sandeep suggested.
    Jewel put her face right up to Kelly’s. “You’re evil!”
    â€œFight! Fight!” voices chanted from the back of the bus. Other kids started clapping.
    There was so much noise, we almost didn’t see Old Quack Quack at the curb. It was hard to tell who noticed him, but suddenly Jewel popped back into her