It was his third day at school and . . .

It started as a chuckle, then built into something bigger, and soon, Héctor had his hand over his mouth, desperately trying to hold the roaring laugh in.

He was in the closet.

Ha, ha, he thought. The joke makes itself.

But then he did go quiet. It might have been funny at first, but as the smell of cleaning agents overpowered his nostrils, he couldn’t ignore the reality anymore.

He was hiding in a closet.

Because of bullies.

Because he was gay.

Maybe he really was a character in one of those terrible health class specials.

A new pain struck him: he’d forgotten to pick up his stuffed Eevee when it had flown off his backpack. There was no way it was still on the floor. This only pushed him deeper into sadness. In his silence, he noticed a web in the corner and a small black spider in the center of it. He bowed in that tiny space.

“Good evening, sire,” he proclaimed in a fake British accent. “Ever so sorry to bother you in your kingdom.”

The spider just sat there.

“I shan’t be doing it again . . . King Ferdinand.”

The spider did not reply.

Back at Alta Vista, acting out random scenes like this was an everyday occurrence with his friends and fellow theater kids. But there, in that closet, shame prickled his skin.

The first bell rang.

Héctor’s heart dropped.

He couldn’t be late to homeroom. That would get him sent to Ms. Heath. So he slowly inched open the door, and, as naturally as he could, he slipped into the flowing crowd, bound for homeroom. He did not look back.

If he had, he would have seen that the door to the janitor’s closet was no longer there on the smooth, flat expanse of wall.

Chapter Seven

Héctor thought that changing things up a bit would steer him clear of his tormentors. On Thursday, he asked his papi to drop him off five minutes before the first bell; Friday morning, he lied and said he needed to do some reading and wanted to be dropped off an hour before class to go to the library.

And both times, Mike and the Minions found him.

Héctor knew that running away didn’t make anything better. He still did it. He ran because it was easier.

Both times, he headed straight for the janitor’s closet at the end of the hallway. He always made it there before Mike and the Minions did, it always seemed to lock behind him, and no matter what they did, those boys couldn’t get inside.

So, for the few minutes he was there on Thursday, or the hour he was there on Friday, Héctor was safe.