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away as fast as he could, but he kept himself in check like always. Never show a bully you’re scared of him.
    Ellis gave his attention back to Dale instead. “So what? You want us to be friends?”
    “Exactly! I knew you’d get it.”
    “Damn, you’re irritating.”
    “But you like me anyway.”
    Ellis wouldn’t have admitted it even under torture. Okay, maybe he would have under torture, but he wasn’t about to tell Dale he found his chatter nice. It filled a hole Matt had left when he’d moved, a hole Ellis hadn’t been able to fill in any other way. Not that he expected Dale to replace Matt—no one would be up to that. But it’d be nice to have a new friend, if Dale even stuck with Ellis once their project was done.
    He liked Dale. The guy was smart, even if a little too mouthy, but no one could be perfect. “I tolerate you.”
    “That’s good enough for me, at least for now. You’ll see, you’ll love me soon enough.”
    Ellis scoffed. “As if.”
     
     
    LUNCH HAD gone better than Ellis thought it would when it became clear Dale was there to stay. Ellis could admit, at least to himself, that he didn’t mind Dale’s company—most of the time.
    He stopped in front of his locker and leaned closer to enter the combination, but an unpleasant smell stopped him. He sniffed. It smelled like sweaty bodies and locker rooms, and it wasn’t something Ellis particularly enjoyed. He couldn’t pinpoint where the smell came from, though, and when he looked around, no one else in the hallway seemed bothered by it, so he opened his locker.
    An avalanche of white hit him in the face, and Ellis gagged at the smell surrounding him. It was ten times worse than before, and when he opened his eyes to see what had hit him in the face, he understood why and gagged again.
    He turned around and tried to keep the nausea under control, but the movement made him notice how the rest of the people in the hallway were reacting to what had just happened. Ellis blushed.
    People were pointing at him and laughing. It stung, but he could do nothing about it.
    He spotted Mark a little farther down. He was leaning against the wall and laughing his ass off along with his friends, and Ellis knew he’d found who had stuffed his locker with dirty jockstraps.
    He should have expected it. It was exactly Mark’s style—funny for Mark and humiliating for Ellis.
    Ellis looked at his feet and tried to keep the tears from falling. Crying would only embarrass him even more, and Mark would jump on the opportunity to torture him. He took a deep breath and waited until his eyes had stopped stinging before looking up again. He realized the entire content of the locker, everything—his books, his jacket—stank as much as the jockstraps.
    “Mr. Aylmer! What happened here?”
    Ellis looked at Mr. Snyder, the European History teacher. “Uh, a prank, Mr. Snyder.” He glanced in Mark’s direction and sure enough, he was laughing even harder than before and pointing at Ellis.
    “A prank?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Well, you better clean it up, and as fast as you can. Next class starts in ten minutes.”
    Ellis cringed at the thought of having to touch the straps, but there was no way out of it. Even i f he were willing to give Mark’s name to Mr. Snyder, Ellis had no proof it had been Mark. Besides, Mr. Snyder wouldn’t give Mark detention. It was routine for him to ignore Mark’s—or anyone’s—bullying.
    “What do I do with those, sir?”
    “Throw everything away. That’ll teach your friends to pull more intelligent pranks.”
    Mr. Snyder gave the straps one last disgusted glance and walked away, leaving Ellis alone with the pile of dirty underwear. At least most of the students were on their way to class and not looking at him anymore.
    Ellis knew he was going to be on everyone’s lips by the end of the next period. He sighed in resignation and trudged toward the bin in the corner of the hallway. Trying to touch it as little as possible,