“I heard you in civics class today talking about the Charter of Rights.” MacKinnon moved forward, pushing his face right up against Harlan’s. “You were goin’ on and on, blah-blah-blah…I thought you were never going to shut up.”

“Miss Thompson asked a question. Someone had to answer it.”

Harlan was moving into dangerous territory. Miss Thompson hadn’t just asked a question, she had asked MacKinnon the question. Then, after he’d hummed-and-ummed his way through a few lines about Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, she complimented MacKinnon on his knowledge of the American Declaration of Independence. When the laughter died down, she turned to Harlan and asked for the right answer.

“You were trying to make me look bad, weren’tcha?”

Harlan wanted to hold his tongue, but he’d had enough of MacKinnon and Del Zotto constantly grinning over his shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to make you look bad,” he said. “You were doing that all by yourself.”

The crowd that MacKinnon had been so careful to gather around himself laughed, not with him, but at him.

“Nice one, Dogface!”

There it was, MacKinnon’s trump card, the thing he kept in his back pocket for when all else failed.

Everyone was still laughing, but now it was at Harlan.

Harlan said nothing in response. What could he say? It was true, after all. While his siblings had all been blessed with attractive human faces, Harlan’s face had retained many of his wolfen features, leaving him with a wide, puglike nose, an extended lower jaw that looked a bit like that of a bulldog, and large ears set high on his head that crested in a slight point. Some of the girls in his class thought Harlan was cute, but MacKinnon’s “Dogface” line always got a laugh.

“Asshole!” Harlan muttered, then turned to walk away.

“What did you say?” MacKinnon called out, grabbing Harlan’s shoulder and spinning him back around.

Harlan said nothing, because nothing he said at this point would help. MacKinnon had come around looking to humiliate Harlan and he’d done it for the most part. All that was left was a few moments of taunting where MacKinnon would try to pick a fight, while Harlan did his best to ignore him.

“C’mon,” prodded MacKinnon. “You’re good with your mouth, are you any good with your fists?”