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get a special waiver from Del Heiny to bring all that in. Pumpkins and lollipops weren’t ketchup-dunkable.
    I salted my lukewarm Tater Tots, then popped open the soda I’d smuggled onto campus. The can was tucked on the seat between my legs so that the janitors who patrolled the cafeteria wouldn’t see it. If it had been a cold soda, I would’ve been in a world of hurt with it jammed against the Thuff Family Jewels. But because I’d stashed the can in my backpack hours ago, it was now the same temperature as my Tots. I wasn’t a fan of room-temp soda—it didn’t have the crisp, carbonated bite of cold pop—but a guy did what he could.
    “Hey, Thuff!”
    I twisted in the direction of the slop counters, where Gardo was waving to get my attention.
    “How many?” he shouted.
    “Nine!” I shouted back.
    “What?”
    “Nine!”
    “Nine!” Thumbs up. “No problem!” He disappeared into the food zone.
    Gardo was skipping lunch because he had to make weight for his upcoming practice game, or meet, or whatever wrestlers called it, so he was fetching more ketchup packets for me. My six corn dogs would be good capacity training for my stomach, but I hadn’t grabbed enough packets to reach the recommended ketchup ratio for that many breaded wieners. And ketchup ratios were important, because Del Heiny was adamant about students getting their proper vegetable allotment each day. The company worked closely with the D.Caf.Nuts to make sure everything sold in the cafeteria was ketchup-dunkable. Laminated cards taped down on each tabletop advised just how many packets to use per corn dog, Tater Tot, etc. To reinforce the Del Heiny Healthy Eating Initiative, the cafeteria’s red walls were stenciled with large slogans like A TOMATO A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY and THE WORLD IS YOUR TOMATO and VEGGIES—THEY’RE NOT ALL GREEN .
    Crouched at a nearby wall under the slogans were the school’s three janitors, all dressed in dill-green coveralls. I probably didn’t need to worry about them patrolling for contraband cola today. They had more interesting things on their minds than my measly soda. Between raspy, cancerous coughing fits, they were bickering about who got to glue the humongous tomato decal over the yellow smudge left by the MUSTARD LOVERS UNITE! tag, which had been squeezed across the Del Heiny company logo.
    Two kids in yellow shirts passed by the janitors. “Go, Mustard!” one shouted. His buddy high-fived him. Some kids following him laughed despite the janitors’ glares.
    The next voice that boomed out wasn’t so welcome. It belonged to Shane Hunt, the biggest jerk on the planet. “I feel the need to dunk me a big…fat…scrub doughnut.”
    Oh, great.
My mouth went dry. Last week Shane had declared it Scrub Dunk Week in the cafeteria and then promptly ordered a different eighth grader chucked into a trash can every day. Starting with me. I still had a bruise on my lower back where the edge of the can had dug in. And now here he was, looking for another victim. Apparently the idiot didn’t know how long a week was.
    Except for a few snickers from the huddled janitors and a “Make it a slam dunk, Shane!” from Shane’s table in the ninth grade section, the cafeteria was silent. Like Moses parting water, Shane swaggered down the center aisle with the Finns, both looking like they had a medical condition as they tried to make their bulky bodies swagger like his too-short one. All of them had their yellow baseball caps on backward. Plums unlucky enough to be in the aisle scuttled out of their way. One poor slob spilled his tray, sending Tater Tots every which way. Shane grinned and stomped the Tots.
    “You missed one!” a janitor called out.
    Shane darted his eyes around the floor, then pointed near Wayne’s—or was it Blayne’s?—left Nike. Whichever, the sneaker raised, then came down hard. A piece of Tot squilched sideways and splatted against Shane’s jeans.
    “Sorry, Captain, sir.”
    Slowly,