“I didn’t ask you,” Nehemiah emphasizes.

“I know.”

Somewhat mollified, Nehemiah relaxes a little. “Well, for the record, your honor, I didn’t have anything to do with that gun.”

I crack half a smile at him. “Once I thought about it, if you had brought it to the park, your crazy self would have run up and down the basketball courts, waving it around until you got tackled.”

Maybe not waving it around. A brother’s got to be discreet. It’s all about the threat. Nehemiah straightens with sudden pride. “What’s the point of carrying it if no one knows you got it.”

“Yeah . . .” I drift off. In the distance, sixth graders run up and down the playground basketball court, little more than blobs of color scurrying about in the throes of recess. They all look so young, but old enough to all be potential suspects. Or victims. This feels so . . . big. I don’t want to see any of them hurt. If I can help find any information to keep them safe . . .

“Everyone come into community circle.” Mrs. Horner’s announcement interrupts my thoughts. “I have something I want to talk about.”

She reminds me of the old-school principal before Mrs. Fitzgerald. Mrs. Horner no longer cared. Most of the time she just sits at her desk, playing on her phone. She only acts busy if Mrs. Fitzgerald comes by or if one of us misbehaves enough (or too loudly for her to concentrate on scrolling through Facebook or whatever). Even then, she’s more annoyed at having to deal with us than wanting to teach us. The computer programs give us our assignments, Mr. Blackmon manages us, leaving her like a football coach playing out the clock at the end of a game.

Actually, school is one big game and there is an unspoken contract between teacher and student. Teachers, facilitators, and administrators have their jobs: telling us what to do. Go here, go there, do this, do that. No, this way. Start over and do it again. And again. And again. Now we students have our own job, too: make their jobs as hard to do as possible.

As if the simple effort to push ourselves up from our chairs is too much for us, we start grumbling as soon as Mrs. Horner stops talking. I roll my eyes for good measure. Nehemiah slams his pencil into his desk, pretending that her request somehow interrupted the flow of the work he had no intention of doing. He laps the room, passing our “Reward Store,” which has all sorts of treats for good behavior (so, pretty much the only time he ever gets near it), stopping for a drink of water at the sink, making quite the production of his protest march before heading toward the gathering.

Twon seems a little slow, but he has a way about him. I have a theory that people get blessed with certain traits, but there is only so much heart to go around. People can’t handle being both sweet and extra-gifted. So some folks, like me, double dipped for talents, charm, and good looks. I’m just saying. People like Twon received extra heart. It’s all about priorities of who you wanted to be. This is just a working theory.