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just called him Brody. “So you’re Tony Jones?” the boy asked, and glanced at his parents, who watched coolly from the far end of the room.
    â€œAnthony,” he corrected. “Or you can just call me Ant.”
    â€œSweet!” the boy said, and shook Anthony’s hand. “Brody Lavallee. Nice to meet you.”
    â€œYou too.”
    The boy waved a hand between his parents and Anthony. “This is my mom and dad. Mom and Dad, Tony Jones.” Mrs. Lavallee said hello from her spot near the wall, while her husband came off of it and shook Anthony’s hand.
    â€œThat’s Jones , right?” the grinning man asked suspiciously. “Not Jones Al-Salami?” The adults laughed. Brody jerked his head and glared at them.
    Anthony stammered. Had they just called him a terrorist?
    â€œHe’s just joking,” Mrs. Lavallee said. “He’s not very funny, but I think we’ll keep him anyway.”
    Across the room, there was a guitar case leaning against a wall. Brody picked it up and brought it over. “You play?”
    â€œMe?” Anthony said looking at it. “Naw, man. Not even close.”
    â€œDon’t speak so soon, dude.” Brody looked at his parents, who were unpacking things and speaking softly to each other. “Besides, I might have more in here to play with than just a guitar.” He pinched his thumb and forefinger together, took an invisible puff, and sang, “Inspirational inhalations . . . for my musical occupation.”
    Brody laughed, but Anthony shook his head. It was the worst voice he had ever heard.
    There was a brief meeting that night in the auditorium, where the headmaster, Dr. Dirk, explained way too many rules. All of the Belton freshmen were there, along with a handful of teachers. Anthony checked out their faces. Aside from a few Asians and one kid who looked Indian, he was adrift in a Caucasian sea.
    And then he heard it. Someone laughed from the corner of the room. It sounded familiar to Anthony, like school assemblies at MLK. When his eyes adjusted and he saw the two black kids, he felt like yelling out. On stage, the headmaster reminded them of the freshman camping trip. Then he dismissed them to their dorms.
    Anthony found the two boys. The tall one was Paul and the chubby one was Khalik. Both of them were from Brooklyn, but they had only met that morning. Paul seemed cool, but Anthony wasn’t so sure about Khalik. He talked too fast and never looked Anthony in the eye.
    Inside the dorm, there was another meeting, this time with Mr. Hawley, an English teacher who was in charge of their floor. The man smiled a lot but also laid down the law, sometimes reading directly from the student handbook. The boys had cleaning jobs that rotated every Sunday. Plus they had morning room inspections and supervised study hall every weeknight. There were rules about bedtime and when to be awake; girls weren’t allowed to visit their rooms, except for supervised occasions; and no one could leave campus before signing out with Mr. Hawley or another adult first. So much for all the prep school freedom Anthony had imagined. The regulations made him miss his mother’s grocery lists.
    An hour later he was lying in the dark and staring at the ceiling while his roommate slept soundly in the bunk underneath. Anthony suspected that the other boys on the floor were sleeping, too, but he couldn’t keep his eyes closed. How far had he traveled in just one day?
    Someone had put BELTON SUCKS in glow-in-the-dark letters on the ceiling, along with a bunch of little stick-on stars that formed an obscene constellation. It was supposed to be funny, but the cosmic blow job only made Anthony uncomfortable. He peered outside, but everything was pitch black. There weren’t any streetlights, and no passing cars. He had never felt so out of place.
    The next morning, Anthony and the rest of the freshmen left school for three days