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“You don’t have to laugh,” she told me.

“I know.”

That was part of why I could.

I shut my locker. Sadie waited while I adjusted the strap of my bag, then walked with me toward the stairs.

Three guys standing beside the drinking fountain watched us approach. One had his phone out. Another nudged him.

I kept walking.

“I’m saving myself for God,” Sadie told the group of guys we passed. “It’s a nunnery for me, you cretins.”

She crossed herself.

She did it backwards.

She was not Catholic.

One of the boys laughed. “You’re fucking crazy, Johnson.”

“If you think I’m crazy, you should see the source material,” she told him, without breaking stride.

I waited until we were around the corner before I laughed.

It didn’t last.

Across the hall, somebody looked up from a phone and then directly at me.

I looked back until they found something else to do.

By the time we came outside for lunch, I had heard my name in three conversations that stopped when I got close.

A teacher had pulled a printed copy off a noticeboard. People were still passing the screenshot around.

I hadn’t seen Chief all morning.

I had seen Clayton. He’d caught up with me between classes, asked whether I’d eaten, and stayed beside me until we reached my next room. Neither of us mentioned the list.

That had almost been worse than talking about it.

Rook had asked Sadie to send him the screenshot. He’d read it without smiling, then put his phone away.

Ruckus hadn’t made a single joke about his supposed contribution.

I was used to the Bishops finding something funny in almost anything. I didn’t like how quiet they were.

The courtyard between the cafeteria and the athletic wing was full. Sun lay hard on the pale concrete, with strips of shade beneath the covered walkway and the old oak growing out of a raised bed near the steps.

The roots had pushed the brick edging out of line. Somebody had painted a yellow stripe along the worst section rather than fix it.

Beyond the low buildings, I could see the upper rows of the football stands.

There were banners for Friday’s game on almost every door.

My English classroom still had a bucket under a ceiling tile.

Sadie and I found room at the end of the low wall around the oak. I set my bag beside me and unwrapped the sandwich I’d brought from home.