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just pull up chairs and sit down together? There was no neutral territory on a high school campus. The land was all claimed, and the borders were solid. We couldn’t just cross them at will.
    The table two tables over was empty, and Brian Bund appeared out of nowhere and took a seat. He actually brought his lunch in a plastic lunchbox, and a Buffy the Vampire Slayer one at that.
    Once again, I knew what we were all thinking. We were all thinking there were consequences for spending too much time outside the border of your own country. Eventually, they wouldn’t let you back in. In other words, you ended up exiled and alone, like Brian Bund.
    At that exact moment, Gunnar showed up. Min, Gunnar, and I had eaten lunch together forever. How I could’ve forgotten this too, I don’t know.
    “Hey,” Gunnar said, his own tray in his hands and a hundred questions on his face.
    “Gunnar?” I said.
    “Gunnar!” Min said. She’d forgotten Gunnar too. But we couldn’t very well turn him away, not without being total jerks. His arrival was actually good timing. It was the perfect excuse everyone needed to make their escapes.
    Sure enough, Kevin said, “I should head. See you guys later!” I blinked, and he was walking away.
    At exactly the same time, Terese gathered her food and stood. “Yeah!” she said. “Me too. Later!”
    “Yeah!” Ike said, and he stood up so fast that he knocked over his chair.
    Gunnar watched Kevin and Terese and Ike as they hurried away from us. Finally, he sat, still watching them as each was sucked back into his or her own circle of friends like a foreign particulate being engulfed by a giant white blood cell in some busy bloodstream.
    “So,” Gunnar said. “What was that all about?”
    “Class project,” Min said. Like me, she was a pretty good liar.
    Even so, I didn’t think Gunnar was buying. He’d spent his whole life trying to be popular, so he was keenly aware of the school’s different cliques and groups. He knew what a strange gathering this had been. It didn’t help that when he’d arrived, they’d all scattered like drug dealers from a bust.
    “Hey,” I said to Gunnar. “I’ve been getting woozy in algebra. They’ve been remodeling the classroom, and I think it’s the formaldehyde in the pressboard.” I was no fool. I knew when it was a good time to change the subject.
    Sure enough, this time Gunnar took the bait. “It could be formaldehyde,” he said. “Or it could be benzene or xylene. They’re in pressboard too.”
    Gunnar kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about Terese and Ike and Kevin (especially Kevin). I wasn’t looking at any of them, and I knew none of them were looking at me. But once again, I knew exactly what they were all thinking. They were thinking what I was thinking, which was, Yesterday at that pizza parlor, I really made a connection with those guys. And now I wonder if I’ll talk to any of them ever again.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    But I did talk to them again, the very next day. We met after school deep in the stacks of the library. I wasn’t sure whose idea it had been—I’d got the message from Min, who’d got an E-mail from Terese—but it was the perfect place to get together. If you’re looking for solitude, a high school library is one of the best places to go, especially in the two hours after classes. And if anyone saw us, we could always pretend we weren’t together, that we all just happened to be looking for a book in the same aisle at the same time.
    Right before the meeting, I’d been wondering how it would feel. Would it be comfortable and real, like the pizza parlor? Or would it feel stilted and embarrassing, like the school cafeteria?
    The second Min and I turned the corner and saw the faces of the others, I knew the answer. I felt that little swell of excitement like when you know you’re about to set the top score on a well-used video game. Being one of the Nerdy Intellectuals I mentioned earlier,