Pepper walks away from both of us. "I don't like trouble."

Dallas and I hustle to catch up with her. I don't remember when this compet.i.tion began. Our other contests are cleara" who's fastest, who's tallest, who played better in the last game. But with Pepper, we're both convinced we're winning.

A guard awaits us at the school gates, no doubt tipped off by Tyler. Pepper slips behind a shrub and glides into school unseen while Dallas and I crawl to the princ.i.p.al's office. Coach Emery is there with Mr. Graham. "I need these boys at practice," he says. Instead of detention, we're a.s.signed hall duty during the afternoon break.

It's humiliating. We wear striped yellow vests and peer around corners for loiterers and contraband. All the kids who clapped my back after history cla.s.s now laugh in my face.

High school is a fickle arena.

"Dad's upset with you for missing two weeks of practice," Brennan warns me in the football trailer.

"And our first game," Bay adds. "Which we lost."

"I know," I say. "He called me a pig-dog and a lamebrain."

Coach Emery sticks his head inside and shrieks, "Get your midget a.s.s out here, Connors!" He makes me fill the water bottles and carry out the benches. Traditionally that's the job of ninth graders. I was looking forward to lording it over them this year. Instead, they survey me with ridicule.

Brennan grabs one end of the bench I'm dragging, but his dad shouts, "No helping! He didn't help you at the last game, did he? Let him do this by himself."

The coach pretends he's tough, but I know he loves me. His exact words to my mother at the end of last season were, "Don't worry. He'll turn out fine."

Unfortunately, he doesn't show me the love at practice. First he makes me sprint, drop and do push-ups up and down the field. Then he lines us up for chute drills and pairs me with Bay. After beating on trees all summer, I was looking forward to slamming into humans today. But with Bay, there's not much difference. I'm in a sweet sort of agony by the time we split into practice teams.

Mr. Reid, the a.s.sistant coach, leads my team. We used to have two a.s.sistant coaches, but Bay's father found a job and no one else volunteered. I've seen Xavier's old movies about small-town high school football with stadium seating and floodlights and uniforms that match, where half the town comes out to watch the games, girls drop their panties for all the players, and coaches review plays in screening rooms after hours. That is not New Middletown football.

Maybe that still goes on in public schools in open cities, or maybe it only happens in movies, but it doesn't happen here. We don't have the money anymore, and if we did, we'd upgrade the chemistry lab. We are the academic elite of a crumbling empire. There may be fifteen-year-olds beyond the walls who risk their ligaments for sport, but we will never meet thema"although Dallas will invent the vehicles that carry the lucky few to their games, and I'll design the factories and prisons to house the rest of them. We're not sloughing off brain cells for a long shot we don't require.

As a consequence, the New Middletown Northeast Secondary junior football team really bleeds. We're called the Scorpions but we have no sting. No one comes out to watch our games, the only panty offering we've had was from Montgomery, and a.s.sistant coaching is a straw too short to pick your teeth with. We have thirty-six players this year, but half of them don't know the rules of football. They're here because two physical activities are mandatory, and cross-country running fills up fast. The only real players are Brennan, the quarterback, and Dallas, a receiver. They both have football-crazed fathers who suited them up at age seven. Since we only play other academic schools, we usually win. Brennan throws to Dallas for the touchdown over and over until the opposition catches on, at which point Brennan hands the ball to me and I run it to the end zone with Bay blocking. We call Sarah Havelock off the bench when we need a kicker. That's our entire playbook.

Running is the reason I'm on this teama"that and my fondness for inflicting and suffering pain and violence. Coach Emery says I run like the devil's chasing me. I told him that when I look at a field, I don't see the players so much as the s.p.a.ce between them, like negative s.p.a.ce in a work of art. He told me to shut my mouth and run.

Today I run faster and shiftier than ever. Mr. Reid asks if I'm on speed meds.

"Fighting strengthened your game," Brennan says as we clear the field.

Dallas agrees. "You're not a coward anymore."

Coach Emery jogs up and asks, "How do you go so fast on midget legs?"

I explain the mathematics of leg length and pendulum swing, but he doesn't appreciate it.

"You're a.s.signed to the middle school team on Sat.u.r.days," he tells me. "They requested an a.s.sistant coach and I'm giving them you."

"Are you serious? Grade sevens and eights? They're five feet tall."

"Then you'll fit right in." Coach Emery walks away, leaving everyone laughing except me.

"Why are you watching a movie when your homework is unfinished?" Mom asks when she gets home with groceries. She's always in a bad mood after spending money.

"Did you never relax after school when you were a kid?" I ask.

"I did my homework first, unless I forgot it."

I can't imagine carrying books and papers back and forth to school. I'd forget them every time. Then Mom would have something concrete to flay me with instead of intangible things like "going that extra mile," which is a damaged metaphor now that fuel is so expensive. Going an extra mile is unjustifiable.

"I'll get to it after dinner," I say.

"Show me what you have." Crack goes the whip.

I scroll through the day's homework. "The human organisma"an anatomical diagram with system descriptions. A law reviewa"three pages, I did it in cla.s.s. Two chapters of North American historya"Xavier says it's all a lie. A translation of some psycho religious texta"I did that in math cla.s.s. Trigonometrya"piece of cake. And I should plan my art exhibit in case I'm selected."

Mom whistles. "School is so demanding these days."

"Only academic school. Throwaways just read and count."

"Don't call them that. They're children just like you and Ally."

She opens the day's announcements on Blackboard and reads: Students in grade four will receive Hepat.i.tis vaccinations next week. Nurses are needed to administer needles. An honorarium will be paid to volunteers. She messages back with her cv, seizing the chance to make a dollar in exchange for a few hours of sleep.

"You can't come to my school," I say.

"It's not your school. It's Ally's school."

"But whenever they get to my school, you can't do shots there."

"Why not?"

I shudder. "School nurses are not good, Mom. They're dregs who work for minimum wage. You can't a.s.sociate me with that."

When she speaks, her voice is icy. "Are you calling me a dreg?"

"No. But you'd look like a dreg if you came to my school." She stares at me, eyes black as coal, but I persist. "It doesn't matter what kind of people we are, Mom. It matters what kind of people we appear to be. You can't do shots at my school. It would kill me."

Thankfully, Dallas calls at that moment and asks me over to work on science. I run to the door and Mom shoves me out. Finally we agree on something.

I jog to my old neighborhood and greet Dr. Richmond with a shining smile. He grunts and opens the door just wide enough for my shoulders to pa.s.s.

Austin jumps off the couch and towers over me with his fist raised. His father snickers in my ear. As the fist heads toward my jaw, I duck, so Austin punches his father in the throat. Dr. Richmond explodes in coughing and profanity.

I flee to Dallas's room, smiling all the way.

"Hi, Max. Did you do your drawings?" Dallas sits behind a ma.s.sive metal desk, diagrams lit up before him, preparing for a future of leadership and advancement. He shows me his progress on the respiratory system, and I open what I have on circulation.

Austin is kicked out of the living room, so he loiters outside Dallas's door, calling us f.a.ggots. I can't concentrate through his idiocy.

"You should augment your memory," Dallas says.

"No way. It wastes the adolescent brain. Kids in the trials are recalls now. Even the meds are dangerous. Remember when you tried them?"

He laughs. "Remember my dad?" He duplicates his father's scowl and wags his finger. "*There's always an adjustment period. This behavior is perfectly normal.'"

"I thought you were going to die," I say. "You were demented. You wouldn't shut up about your hallucinations."

He shakes his head at the memory. "Thank G.o.d Mom let me stop."

"You don't need meds, Dallas. Your brain is supreme."

"Yours too, Max."

"Parents always make you do more than you have to. I pull nineties with moderate effort, but that's not good enough for Mom. I should exhaust myself for hundreds."

"No kidding. Dad would do anything to make me more employable. He won't stop pushing until I break."

"It bleeds," I say. "It's not natural. We shouldn't have to try harder."

Austin pounds on the bedroom door. "Help, guys!" he shouts. "I'm stuck!"

Dallas opens his door to his giant brother, who's bending over with his pants down, laughing maniacally.

"Then again," I say, "maybe some of us are not trying hard enough."

It's raining as Ally and I walk to school. She hangs her head and looks for drowning worms. She's happy, but it saddens me. She's at the mercy of a merciless world. If she had to cross a river and a crocodile said, "Step on me. I'm a log," she'd say, "Really? You look like a crocodile." "No, no," he'd say, "I'm a log. Step on me and you'll see." And off she'd go, never to be seen again.

I keep her company outside the school, holding her umbrella while she saves one last worm.

I don't carry an umbrella for myself. I'll take my hood down when I get near school because hoods are not fit, but I wear it on the road to protect my hair.

Unfortunately, it blocks my peripheral vision so I don't see Tyler Wilkins and his goons sneak up behind me. They grab me tight, Washington on one arm and some grade nine beast on the other. I drop Ally's umbrella. I'm so startled I barely have time to exhale before Tyler hits me in the gut.

I come up fast and furious. Instead of struggling away, like they expect, I lean into Washington to get some leeway for my arm, then I elbow him in the throat. He lets go fast, freeing my hand to grab the head of the grade nine goon and jerk it forward into the spot where Tyler's next punch is aimed. Kapow. I'm like a movie star. Then Ally's umbrella trips me up so I take another shot from Tyler.

That makes me mad. I kick Tyler's kneecap as hard as I can, twice. He squeals and falls forward. I ram my knee into his jaw. His head cracks back with a sound that cuts through my frenzy.

Ally screams.

I grab Tyler's throat, partly to be tough but mostly to make sure his head doesn't fall off in front of my little sister. I look him in the eye and say, "There's not going to be a next time. If you need more than two guys to take me down, it's time to give up." From the regurgitated c.r.a.p of Xavier's damaged movies come the words, "There's no honor in this for you."

Tyler's goons stand back. Washington holds his throat, and the other boy staunches a nosebleed.

I shake the rain from my face and pull Tyler to his feet. "I don't want to fight you again," I say. "You're nothing to me now."

He eyes me intently for a few seconds. I can't tell if he's going to knife me or confess that he's in love with me. He nods and spits on the grounda"but nowhere near me or Ally because I'd take his head off if he did that. He wipes his face and glances at the school to see how many first graders have witnessed his humiliation. "Jesus Christ," he whispers.

I look over too. Washington and the other goon look over. Ally looks over. We all stand there speechless, staring at the schoolyard.

There are no faces glued to the fence watching our fight. n.o.body watches from the play structures. n.o.body pauses in a puddle, points an umbrella or strains for a better view. n.o.body.

The schoolyard is a silent field of concrete. Twelve hundred children stand before the closed doors, holding umbrellas over their heads and ident.i.ty cards below their chins, waiting for admittance. They're thirty feet away from us, but not one head turns in our direction. They stand in long straight lines in the pouring rain, eyes forward, mouths closed, feet exactly the same distance apart, like gravestones.

One supervisor stands beneath the eaves and stares at us like she wishes we were dead. She digs up a fake smile and shouts, "Alexandra Connors! Come join your schoolmates!"

Ally walks through the gate with her face in the rain, dragging her busted umbrella. She doesn't even say goodbye.

FOUR.

"Let's do surveillance on the middle school."

Dallas throws me a scornful look. He chases a fourth slice of pizza with a second carton of milk and grows another half inch taller. "Why?"

"I want to see if it's like Ally's school."

He shakes his head, mystified, but he follows me.

Everything about the middle school is short and squat, like the kids who go here. "I always hated this place," I mutter.

A thousand students in grades five through eight are crammed into three flat-roofed concrete units only three stories high. A single-story addition serves as a music conservatory. Music floating across the barren grounds would be glorious, but the conservatory is soundproof. They wouldn't want to accidentally inspire a mind.

"You got in so much trouble here," Dallas says, smiling.

I was nearly expelled in eighth grade after my third graffiti conviction. The princ.i.p.al didn't understand what bare white walls could do to a kid like me. The third time I was suspended, my mother cried and my father raced to the school to see my piece before they pressure-washed it.

"It's too hot," Dallas complains, sniffing his armpits. "Everything looks smaller than I remember. This driveway was miles longer. Who was the kid who always hid in the ditch?"

"Wheaton Smithwick," I say.

"Wheaton. Yeah. I haven't seen him since the first week of school."

"Maybe he was downgraded."

Dallas points to the conservatory. "We climbed that roof to fetch him down once, remember? It looked a lot higher then. And that soccer field was farther away."

We walk toward the conservatory behind two eighth graders. One of them is taller than me, skinny, with cropped hair and too much makeup. She pushes her short friend into the ditch.

"Some things never change," I say.

Dallas smiles and shoves me over, inches from the drop. We block the path of three fifth graders who wear their ties tight at the collar. "I was never that little," Dallas says.

"Excuse me," I tell the tiny white kids. "We're taking a survey."

They walk right by me.