Connect the Stars by Marisa de los Santos Page B

don’t think I know everything,” I said. “I think I remember everything. But I don’t know anything.”
    â€œOh, son,” my dad said much more softly. Suddenly, he was over being mad. He put his arm around me. “I realize it’s hard.”
    â€œMrs. Dunaway is the greatest teacher I’ve ever had,” I explained. “She was trying to teach me somethingimportant. She gave me a nutty poem. She asked me questions with no answers. She’s awesome. And the principal was going to fire her. Because of that test. I just wanted to help her!”
    â€œWe know your heart is in the right place,” said my dad. “But things have to change. You could’ve gotten yourself expelled.”
    â€œMaybe we’ve let you down,” reflected my mom. “Maybe when you memorized all fifty-seven countries in Africa just by walking past the globe at the pediatrician’s office when you were three—”
    â€œSixty-one,” I corrected. “Including independent territories.”
    â€œMaybe then we should have consulted an expert. But we thought you’d outgrow it.”
    â€œI probably would’ve ended up this way no matter who you consulted,” I reassured them.
    â€œYour mom and I talked it over earlier,” said my dad, “and we did some research and conferred with the school counselor, and we think maybe you could use a change of scene, a brand-new start, a blank page for the summer.”
    â€œWhat kind of place?” I asked.
    â€œA place where you have to think , instead of just remember ,” said my mom. “Like you said.”
    â€œThere’s a place like that?” I asked.
    â€œWe believe so,” said my dad.
    â€œWhere is it?” I asked.
    â€œWe said a blank page,” my dad reminded me.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” I asked.
    â€œWe’re not telling you where you’re going, honey,” sighed my mom. “Because what good will it do if you memorize every known fact about it before you get there?”

CHAPTER FIVE
Audrey Alcott
    El Viaje a la Confianza Trailhead
    Pumpjack, Texas
    THE VIAJE A LA CONFIANZA brochure hadn’t been lying about the “stunningly beautiful” landscape. Even from the window of the airport shuttle that took me to the camp, I drank in the spice colors of the earth and noticed the way the clear sunlight made everything sharper than at home. When I got off the van at the trailhead in a tiny town called Pumpjack, beside a low, plain stucco ranger station with a red tile roof, I just stood there for a moment, blinking and greedily breathing in what felt like an entirely new kind of air.
    But I’d hardly gotten my bearings when a voice boomed across the parking lot, “I’m Jare Eastbrook, your mentor and guide along el Viaje a la Confianza. Parents, see you in six weeks!’”
    A few tearful good-byes continued while Jare made thisannouncement, but I grabbed my backpack and jogged over to a patch of silvery-green grass to join what I guessed must be my fellow campers, a group of pretty dazed-looking kids. Jare’s wasn’t the kind of voice you disobey.
    â€œNo. Really. I’m serious,” shouted Jare as he seemed to loom over the parking lot. “See you, parents. Skedaddle. Vamoose. Let me start earning all that money you just paid me.”
    My shuttle was long gone, but the few moms and dads who’d driven their kids all the way to the trailhead shot him doubtful looks.
    â€œI know what I’m doing,” Jare assured them. “Bye.”
    Less than a minute later, all the parents were gone, and he turned to us. “We’re gonna hike from this ranger station to el Presidio de la Norte. Two hundred and ten miles of scenic Texas desert in six weeks. Which means we have to cover approximately five miles a day of mountains, gullies, badlands, and worse lands. Smile. That’s a joke.”
    A minivan