He stood with a yellow plastic tray in his hands, just beyond the end of the cafeteria line. He was ignoring the food on the tray; he wasn’t even sure it was meat in the breaded patty that limply sat in one of the squares. His focus was on the long expanse of tables before him.

Héctor had only attended one school since kindergarten: Alta Vista Academy. And you didn’t have to worry about where to sit at lunch when you were five. By the time that sort of thing mattered, Héctor had found Tim and Sophia. He’d discovered musical theater. He knew where to go!

So where did Héctor belong here?

This felt like one of those movies Mrs. López used to show in her Health Sciences class, as if Héctor was about to be taught an important lesson about friendship by an animated bird. At least that would be more helpful, he thought. He had no idea what he was doing.

The table of jocks was closest: all the athletes flocked to one another like they were their own species. There was no way Héctor would ever be caught there in his whole life.

The cheerleaders would probably be nice to Héctor, but that wasn’t the right table, either.

There were the band geeks, their gear stuffed under the table in black hard-shell cases. Héctor internally sneered at them. It was silly, but there was a long-standing competition between band geeks and theater nerds. He was sure these kids were fine people! But it was the principle. Never! Never shall the two be friends!

A group of gamers were huddled around a Switch, but as Héctor watched, Ms. Heath swooped in like a hawk and confiscated it. As the kids at that table groaned loudly, the meme kids at the next table over took advantage of the noise to continue making videos on their phones or showing each other whatever new meme they found online. Clearly, they were much better at hiding their devices from Ms. Heath.

They still weren’t right for Héctor.

He passed each table and observed for a moment or two, hoping that he’d see something familiar: kids practicing their lines; impromptu fashion shows; harmonized sing-alongs. But there was nothing of the sort. His heart raced as he passed by the comic book nerds, and then . . . that was it.

Héctor was at the back of the cafeteria, and there was only one option: a mostly empty table with just five kids sitting at it.

Four of them were huddled at one end of it, and then, far at the other end, there was a lone kid with pale skin and dark hair and a skull T-shirt on. Héctor recognized it as a Misfits T-shirt. It was kinda impossible to live in the Bay and not know who they were.