“Really?” said Mr. Giles. “Because I just heard you tell the entire school that you run it. Which was a surprise to me as vice principal.”

“But I—I didn’t mean—”

Mike couldn’t finish the sentence. He glanced back at Frank, who wore a similar expression of shock.

“I am so disappointed in your behavior, Mike,” said Ms. Heath. She stepped forward, closer to the stage light, and Héctor could now see her face, twisted in frustration. “I can’t believe you would do something like this!”

There was a flare within Héctor. Not in his leg, which still throbbed from where Mike’s knee had dug into it. No, this was a flash of anger, one that hit Héctor square in the chest.

This was not part of the plan.

He wasn’t playing a role anymore.

Héctor lifted himself from the stage floor and hobbled forward. “That’s the problem,” he said to Ms. Heath. “You always believed him. Always.”

“Mr. Muñoz,” said Vice Principal Giles. “I don’t know what you’re referring to, but perhaps this isn’t the best time for this.”

Héctor stared out at the crowd beyond the stage.

Every seat was full. His fellow students sat mostly with their hands clapped over their mouths, their eyes wide. He was looking for the Misfits, though. He spotted them on the far right, sitting together.

“Mr. Giles,” Héctor began. He gulped. “I think it’s the perfect time.”

“What are you talking about?” he said.

It was now or never.

“How many of you have ever been bullied or picked on by Mike or Frank?”

Héctor shouted it to the audience as terror rose in him. He had never done something like this.

He raised his hand.

Then . . .

Aishah did.

Then Jackson.

Then Taylor.

Then Carlos.

And then . . . it was like a wave. A few students near those four raised their hands. Then more on the opposite side.

Then: more than half the audience.

Off to the left, he saw a hand raised in the air, shaking. It belonged to Carmen. And right then, Héctor couldn’t find the energy to be angry with her. They might never be friends again, but the reason she’d behaved as she did?

It was Mike.

Héctor turned back to Ms. Heath, whose expression had drooped in horror. “Oh my God,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Because you didn’t want to know,” Héctor said, his voice much quieter than before, and for a moment, the sadness returned. “I told you the first time you asked me. I told you everything. And you said Mike”—Héctor pointed to Mike, who still stood motionless in the spotlight—“would never do something like that.”

A voice rang out from the audience.