That’s probably why he thought he could get away with telling them no.

They told him to buy a candy bar. He told them to get stuffed.

“You sure about that?” Wade had asked.

Ryan said, “What, you gonna hit me over some candy?” Someone laughed.

Wade turned away. It looked like Ryan had called his bluff.

Then Wade shoved Ryan off the sidewalk and into the path of an oncoming car.

The car hit its brakes almost instantly. It was driven by a senior who was on his way out of the parking lot. It wasn’t going too fast. Still, Ryan suffered a broken leg and collarbone. He would miss about a week of school plus the rest of the football season.

Carrie didn’t witness it, but she heard about it the next day. Everyone did.

But nobody ratted out Wade.

Ryan said he slipped. He was scared. Nobody who was in line said anything different.

And the other Sales Force kids — not the Warriors, but ordinary kids, ones Carrie had known since grade school — they laughed.

She saw them in the hallway, imitating Ryan’s surprised lurch in front of the car, his screams of pain, his limp as he walked in his cast.

They thought it was hilarious.

The Sales Force began moving in packs, carrying thermos mugs of coffee, muttering phrases like “ABC: Always Be Closing” and “Business is war.” They clustered together in the halls, the lunchroom, the gym. They looked at other people with smirking contempt, commented on their clothes, their shoes, their hair. The Sales Force gathered up a lot of people who were used to being ignored, the kids who didn’t get elected to student council, who never had anyone decorate their lockers on their birthdays, who never heard their name on the announcements for winning a game or taking some top academic honor. Suddenly, they belonged; they had their own clique.

And they had money. A lot of it. Goodson handed out fat stacks of cash to his people. There was enormous pressure to sell, and to find new recruits, and to join up. Carrie was soon the only one in her homeroom without a T-shirt.

It got weird fast.

The students pounded on their lockers as Carrie walked down the hall. All together, like the drumbeat at a football game, or in some kind of tribal ritual. They all stared at her as she went past.

And they chanted. “HOW MANY? HOW MANY? HOW MANY?” Bam-bam-bam. Bam-bam-bam. Bam-bam-bam. A steady pulse, almost in time with her footsteps, following her all the way to her own locker.

Boxes, they meant. How many boxes had she sold.

Carrie wasn’t selling, so she went through this every day. She walked past all the other students as they stomped and pounded and glared at her.