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time.”
    “You know Big Mack?” I asked, pretending to be surprised. The lunchroom worker was part cafeteria worker, part security, all legend. “Did you know that he was in county lockup with my dad?”
    A total lie. And if they thought for two seconds, they’d realize it, since Big Mack was a school employee.
    But they didn’t think. And given what they assumed about me, of course they went for it.
    A few of the jocks started repeating, “In county with his
dad,
” like it was the best part.
    Dwight had to choose between looking pissed and playing along. You could see he was pissed. But he forced himself to laugh and ate six more nachos.
    “Tasty,” he said.
    His friends howled.
    “No hard feelings, right?” I said. Throwing it back at him, just like he’d done in the parking lot.
    Michael lifted his chin at Dwight. “Good play, man.” Like the team had just made a touchdown or something. Dwight relaxed.
    That’s the kind of power Michael had. Three little words and the whole thing was over, because Michael said
good boy.
    Terrell slapped my hand and straddled the bench next to me. Everyone called him T-Man, partly because of his first name, but mostly because he was the go-to receiver on the football team and so scored more than anyone else.
    “County, huh? What’d he go in for?”
    LaShonda scooped her arms around his neck. They were looking at me like junior gangsters, even though I knew that T-Man’s dad was a dentist and LaShonda was president of Future Business Leaders of America.
    “Drugs.” I decided it didn’t matter. Anyone with halfway decent computer skills could probably look it up anyway.
    Which made me wonder if Michael had.
    T-Man and LaShonda nodded like they knew firsthand what I was talking about.
    I managed to keep a straight face.
    By the end of lunch I’d learned a few more nicknames. Reagan (Ray-ray) was a cute girl who seemed smarter than her boyfriend, Mike-Lite, who was apparently so called because he used to want to be just like Michael. His real name was Ethan.
    Beast, who everyone in school recognized on sight, was perhaps the biggest high schooler I’d ever seen. He didn’t look like he should be able to stand, much less play football, but he must manage somehow.
    Cyndra’s cheerleader friends from first block were Samantha (Sammy) and Monique (Mona)—also the same two who had kept walking by during break.
    Cyndra brushed her hair and didn’t eat anything, laughing with her friends and flirting with everyone.
    Michael didn’t mind. It was like he got a charge out of it.
    Cyndra and her girls made me feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. They kept laughing, talking between themselves, and looking at me—letting me see it.
    I resisted the urge to check myself. Just looked away, waiting for the bell and wondering how long Michael would want to pay me for this nothing act. If I would ever get what the point was.
    When the bell rang, T-Man slapped my hand, slid it into another clasp, and bumped shoulders. I tried to look like I knew the move. A couple other jocks held little one-potato fists over my arm and waited for me to make one—then they dropped a quick bounce on mine, one after the other.
    Michael and I sat, watching everyone file indoors.
    “That was fun, wasn’t it?” he said, when they all moved away. “Power. It’s the ultimate.”
    I guessed he was talking about my little game with Dwight.
    “You would know,” I said.
    He smiled. “Yeah, I would.”

C HAPTER F IVE
    C lay was gone when I walked back through the cafeteria with Michael. We dumped our trays and headed upstairs.
    Mr. Stewart’s AP History class is the only one that I never want to sleep through. He goes into such great detail, it’s like you know the people he’s talking about. You almost hate that they lived centuries before you. He was the only teacher I had this year who really seemed to care about the subject he taught and wanted to make sure you understood it. Like he was