“I’m not sure if I’m more distressed by your use of the word totes or by the fact that you think I’m dibs-able.”

“You’re stage crew now. We stick together.”

Side by side, we lay out the materials for today’s lab, which involves mealworms and petri dishes. Mr. Bernard spent the first half of class regaling us about the insights into human nature we will gain from watching these squirmy little dudes for the next few weeks. I have my doubts, considering I can’t even tell which end is the head and which end is, well, the end.

“Each group of organisms create a community, and these simple mealworms are no exception,” Mr. Bernard says. “In life, community is key, whether you’re an arthropod or a Homo sapiens.”

A snicker waves through the back table, where three hulking boy-men in varsity football jackets repeat the word homo.

“Homo sapiens are humans,” Mr. Bernard says.

“Whatever floats your boat, buddy,” the tallest meathead says. Mr. Bernard looks at him for a minute and tries one more time.

“No, literally, Homo sapiens is a classification of people. It follows Homo erectus.”

This only ignites another round of laughter, whereupon Mr. Bernard sits in his chair and begins to read rather than attempt to enlighten these modern-day knuckle draggers.

While we prep our luxury plastic habitat for our segmented charges, Asad talks about set design and his lighting concept, which is apparently going to “blow my mind.”

“I think of lighting as its own character, you know? Like how I illuminate the stage tells a part of the story,” he says.

I fill our petri dish with wood shavings as he talks, which is basically nonstop, telling me how he wishes we were doing Wicked instead of the original Wizard of Oz because it’s his favorite musical of all time and he’s been lobbying to do it since freshman year.

“It changed my life.” He looks straight into my eyes when he says this, as if he’s revealing a part of himself. All I know is his coffee-black eyes reveal me in their glassy darkness so clearly that I look away.

“I’ve never seen it. It came to Salt Lake once when I was little, but we couldn’t go,” I say.

“But you know the songs, right? Everybody knows the songs.”

I shake my head.

“Nope. Personal rule: no music until I see the play. Don’t want to spoil it. But isn’t Wicked just like The Wizard of Oz on acid?”

Asad puts down the handful of wood shavings he was making into a small mealworm bed, props his elbows on the counter, and drops his head into his hands like I’ve betrayed him.