"I know, right?" laughed Amos.

"He was like, 'Are you a freak, too?' and you were like, bam!" said Jack.

"We can stop!" Miles yelled from farther up.

"How did you guys know?" said Jack.

"I can't see a thing!"

"I'm right here!" said Amos's voice a few feet behind us.

"You just rammed into him!" I said to Amos.

"They looked like jerks."

"He didn't even see it coming!" said Miles.

"We lost them," said Henry. "Whoa! That was intense!"

"Shh! Let's listen!"

We all got super quiet, listening for footsteps in the dark. All we could hear were the crickets and frogs and our own crazy panting. We were out of breath, stomachs hurting, bodies bent over our knees.

"What happened to the flashlight?"

"We saw them before."

"I dropped it!"

"Yeah."

"Jack!" I yelled.

"Amos?"

"Are you sure we lost them?" Henry asked, letting go of my arm. That's when I realized that he'd been the one who was pulling me as we ran.

Finally, after what seemed like a forever of running, someone yelled: "I think we lost them!"

"Whoa!" said Jack. "I'm here."

"Okay, I know exactly where we are," said Amos. "We have to go back in this direction. That'll take us to the other side of the field."

"Losers!" Henry shouted really loudly, but we all shushed him.

"I think they were seventh graders."

"I grabbed Auggie and I was like, 'Run!' " said Henry.

"Where the heck are we?" asked Amos. "I can't even see the screen."

"Your lip is bleeding, dude."

"Totally wild."

"Bam!" said Amos, throwing a fake punch in the air. "But after I tackled him, I was like, run, Amos, you schmuck, he's ten times bigger than you! And I got up and started running as fast as I could!"

"I got in a couple of good punches," answered Amos, wiping his lip.

"That was wild," said Amos, shaking his head.

We all started laughing.

"I think we're in the cornfields," answered Henry.

"They were huge."

We listened for a second to make sure no one had heard him.

"I didn't even know it was you pulling me!" I answered.

"Yo, dudes," said Jack, hand high in the air. "That was really cool of you guys to come back for us. Really cool. Thanks."

"Duh, we're in the cornfields," said Miles, pushing a cornstalk at Henry.

"Hey, your elbow's bleeding," said Jack.

I nodded. Suddenly I felt like crying, and I was trying really hard not to do that.

"You okay?" said Jack, seeing my face.

"Yeah, dudes, thanks," I said, holding my palm up like Jack just had, though I wasn't sure if they'd high-five me, too.

"Yeah, Auggie," said Miles, high-fiving me, too. "You were like, 'We're littler than you guys'…"

I looked down, and my sweatshirt was completely torn down the middle. One sleeve was ripped off, and the other was so stretched out it was hanging down to my knees.

"What!" I yelled, touching my ears. The hearing aid band was definitely gone. That's why I felt like I was underwater! "Oh no!" I said, and that's when I couldn't hold it in anymore. Everything that had just happened kind of hit me and I couldn't help it: I started to cry. Like big crying, what Mom would call "the waterworks." I was so embarrassed I hid my face in my arm, but I couldn't stop the tears from coming.

"Yeah." I shrugged. It was starting to hurt a lot.

"I didn't know what else to say!" I laughed.

Amos looked at me and nodded. "It was cool how you stood your ground, little dude," he said, high-fiving me.

"Very cool," said Henry, and he high-fived me, too. "Sorry I ripped your sweatshirt."

"Wait, your hearing aids are gone!" said Jack.

"No problem," answered Amos, high-fiving Jack. And then Miles and Henry high-fived him, too.

The guys were really nice to me, though. They patted me on the back.

"You're okay, dude. It's okay," they said.

"You're one brave little dude, you know that?" said Amos, putting his arm around my shoulders. And when I kept on crying, he put both his arms around me like my dad would have done and let me cry.