So why does he hate me so much?

Thomas had known about Vic before the whole thing on the court playing five-on-five. But ever since, he’d started to ask about Vic. Carlos and his football buddies knew him, but certainly didn’t seem to care much for him. And that was before this whole thing happened. The more Thomas had gotten to know about Vic, the more it seemed the guy should be welcoming him to Greer High. They seemed to have a lot in common. Vic’s parents were divorced, so he lived with his father. Thomas would guess he didn’t have much of a house. Vic drove his father’s pickup when he could, but the rusted-out Chevy revealed they didn’t have a lot of money. Maybe they had a little more than Thomas and his family, but not much.

Thomas thought a guy like that would give him some slack.

So he thought until Carlos pulled him aside before second period earlier this morning.

“Man you ain’t gonna believe this,” Carlos had said.

The guy wore loose jeans under his football jersey. He reached into a pocket and found an iPhone. Thomas might be able to get one of those in about ten years.

Yeah, maybe that exact model too, ten years from now.

Carlos’s thick hands were surprisingly nimble in using his phone. He touched the screen, then gave Thomas the phone.

“I’m assuming you haven’t seen this.”

Thomas recognized that he was looking at Facebook. He used to get on it back in Georgia, but it had been months since he’d checked out his page.

The page Carlos was showing him had his picture on it. But this wasn’t his own personal profile.

“What is this?” he asked.

He kept scrolling and reading. To the right of the picture, obviously taken in the hallways at school, was some text:

Feed the Hungry

Tom Brandt is a new kid at Greer High School. As these pictures show, he is in dire need of food, clothing, and A LIFE. If we get 1,000 followers we’ll buy Tom a whole new wardrobe. And maybe lunch.

For a second Thomas couldn’t understand what he was looking at. He thought Carlos was playing around with him. “What is this?”

“It’s a joke, that’s what it is.” Carlos took the phone from him and touched it for a few moments. “There—look at that.”

There were a dozen shots of Tom on different days. He was wearing the same jeans in all the pictures, with a few different shirts.

“What—? I don’t . . .”

Carlos nodded as if he knew exactly what Thomas was going to say. Or what he was going to try to say.

“Who took these?” Thomas asked, suddenly feeling frantic.

Carlos showed him the screen again.

Sure enough, the “creator” of this page was none other than Vic West.

Thomas felt bewildered for a moment, trying to figure out what this meant. He didn’t believe it even though he could see it with his own eyes.