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laughing and pushing one another playfully. Their bar code tattoos flashed beneath their varsity sweaters as they horsed around. When they caught sight of Zekeal and Mfumbe, their eyes narrowed.
    A tall blond guy, Tod Myers, stepped forward. “I thought we told you freaks to put the little magazine away,” he said.
    Mfumbe thrust a copy toward him. “You might find it interesting. Even if you already have the tattoo, you can choose alternate forms of payment and ID — it’s not too late.”
    Tod and his three teammates formed a semicircle in front of Kayla, Zekeal, and Mfumbe.
    “Get lost, we have the right to express our opinions,” Zekeal defied them. “This is still America. At least the last time I checked.”
    Kayla folded her arms, unwilling to leave or let them know she was scared. Mfumbe and Zekeal also stood firm.
    “Do you have some problem with our government?” Tod demanded.
    “I don’t have any problem with America,” Zekeal replied. “I have a problem with Global-1 and their fascist tactics. It’s not the same thing.”
    “What’s the president ever done to you?” Tod challenged.
    “Global-1 is cheating me out of the rights I have as an American,” Zekeal replied. “They work behind the scenes without letting senators and members of Congress know what’s happening. Loudon Waters isn’t a president — he’s a corporate dictator!”
    As Zekeal finished the last word, Tod flung him across the hall, slamming him into the bank of lockers. The football player raised a clenched fist and pulled it back, poised to strike, but Mfumbe leaped onto it.
    Two more football players grabbed Mfumbe and threw him into the wall. “Hey!” Kayla shouted. This distracted them for the second required for Mfumbe to slip out of their grasp.
    But as Mfumbe jumped back, one of the football players grabbed his shirt and swung him in a wide arc. He hurtled into Kayla, knocking themboth across the hall into more lockers. Kayla’s face hit the locker vent and her cheek scraped it as she was tugged to the ground by the weight of Mfumbe’s hand entangled in her backpack.
    A sharp whistle blew and the football players jumped back. Zekeal scrambled to his feet, his forehead bleeding.
    “What’s going on here?” boomed Mr. Duggan, the science teacher and football coach.
    “These guys are disrespecting the United States, sir,” Tod reported breathlessly.
    Coach Duggan looked at Zekeal. He spotted the ’zines sprawled across the floor and nodded. “Morrelle, what did I tell you about those things?”
    “You said they’d make some people mad, but you didn’t say we weren’t allowed to distribute them,” Zekeal answered.
    “My guys, all of you, get out of here. And don’t let me find you fighting on school grounds again!” Coach Duggan snapped at his players, who hurried down the hall away from them. “Morrelle, Taylor, come with me and bring your papers. You, too, Ms. Reed. Come on.”
    “We haven’t done anything wrong,” Kayla insisted. She brushed her hand along her cheek and it came up streaked with blood. “Look what they did to me — to us.” Zekeal’s right cheek was already a yellow-tinged purple. Mfumbe pressed his left arm to his chest and winced painfully.
    “You can see the nurse after you see the principal,” Mr. Duggan said.
    “Those other guys — your team — they’re the ones who should be seeing Mrs. Harmon,” Kayla argued.
    Coach Duggan was already walking down the hall, leading them to the principal’s office. Mrs. Harmon met them in her steel-and-glass office.
    “Don’t we have the right of free speech?” Zekeal challenged when she told them they could no longer distribute KnotU2 .
    “You have the right to express your political views as you like,” she replied in her smooth, unflappable way. “But by distributing your paperwork in the hallways, you are disrupting the flow of student traffic, thereby creating a fire hazard, thereby violating school