If Lamar were here he would turn it around: act like being the new guy was all a big joke, point at one of the students in front, or pick the best-looking one, and flip’em the bird. He’s as small as they come but I bet he’d step right up to the biggest cat in the room—besides me—and try to pick a fight, establish himself right away. Of course, Lamar’d get himself suspended within the hour, but he’d be dancing all the way out the school door. Without Lamar, I got no voice, no one who understands my eye-rolls. I got no one to show my sketches for that bike shop we’d own together. Without Lamar, I got no one to help me track down Crud Bucket after they release him so we can kidnap him and tie him to a chair in some dark basement and make him explain every single mark he left on us. As always, thinking of Lamar helps at first. Then it hurts.

I tried explaining to Oregrove’s school secretary I’ve already taken algebra, but with each attempt my idiot tongue thickened even more. Her pasted-on smile told me she wasn’t really hearing anything the big retard said anyway. She’s leafed through my records, read my transcript, heard me speak, and now she’s got me all figured out. The wadded-up disco shirt Patti pulled out of a plastic bag and forced me to wear ain’t exactly helping my case, either. Being a coach’s recruit is supposed to make me special. But someone coming from my situation, sounding like my tongue’s juggling ice cubes, makes me a kind of “special” that caused the secretary to address me too slowly and too loudly. Those grades I got at Lincoln High don’t mean nothing to her because Lincoln’s more a holding cell than a school in her mind. Funny how Lincoln and Oregrove both share the idea of keeping me back a year, two even. All the better to keep me humping that football up and down the field to win them a title.

“That coach of yours said he’d arrange us extra funding to help beef you up,” Patti explains that first day she welcomes me into her home as my latest foster guardian. “You’ll get a real good education at Oregrove. Your coach said they’ll be able to highlight your skills, most likely get you signed for a full scholarship at a university. I don’t have to tell you just how big a gift that is.” Patti’s no worse than the last four foster guardians since Crud Bucket, but her face keeps lighting up whenever she mentions—three times that first day—the extra funds Oregrove High School’s coach promised her.

Walking into the sticky-hot classroom, I got nothing against my new algebra teacher, Mr. Klech, but no way am I sitting up front at his desk while all those eyes zero in on me. So I ignore him. I put my head down, remind myself none of it really matters, that it’s all just a game created by adults: filling out forms, standing in line, finding your place, doing as you’re told, and—most important—making sure if someone’s cracking fists, it’s you doing the swinging. Me and Lamar discovered that last one together. All those eyes watching me walk to the back of Mr. Klech’s classroom can’t touch me. Not like Crud Bucket. Not even close.