Checking the time, 10:50 a.m., I have my Humanities homework to do. With a stroll so lazy Nehemiah would have been proud of it—if he wasn’t so caught up in making sure all his things were in the mess he called a desk—I headed toward mine. Out the corner of my eye, I watch Mr. Blackmon approach. It’s like he times himself to interrupt my flow.

“Thelonius, can I talk with you for a second?” Mr. Blackmon’s water bottle still drips from being refilled. He drags a chair from the nearest desk over to me.

“Sure, Mr. Blackmon. What you need?” I ease back in my seat and strike my the-doctor-is-in pose.

I have to admit, Mr. Blackmon isn’t like the other folks who pass through Special Ed. Most folks fall into one of two camps: the burnouts, like Mrs. Horner, who came in day after day to collect their checks and whatever else it was old teachers do when they lose their joy; or the do-gooders, who try a bit too hard to relate to us but are mostly in here to study us so they can “change the system.” They ask a lot of questions, write a lot of papers, and pat themselves on their backs a lot for doing . . . something. Mr. Blackmon actually seems to care, though that doesn’t make him above being messed with.

“What do you think about what Mrs. Horner just said?” he asks.

“I agree with Nehemiah. She’s always accusing us. I guess it’s going to be that kind of day.”

“I get that. That part’s on her. What about the part that’s on you?” Mr. Blackmon cocks his head. A bit of sympathy drips from his tone, but that head angle means he wants to drill into me for a while.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t think that somewhere along the line, in your history, you may have done things that have earned you . . . a bit of a reputation?”

Pausing for a second, I sift through my words carefully. There is a trap in his question somewhere, I am pretty sure of it. “What are you getting at?”

“First Mrs. Fitzgerald has her talk with us. Then Mrs. Horner has her talk with us. I was just wondering how you were taking it all,” he says without accusation.

Shifting in my seat, I turn away from him. This dude’s always trying to get in my feels. I’m no saint, but I’m no felon either. That’s the way it goes, though: they get used to blaming you for little stuff and it’s easy for them to put the heavy stuff on you, too. This here has some serious weight to it and I know I’m not the one to carry it. Whoever it is will be in a world of trouble we ain’t ready for, though. I half mutter something along those lines and stop because it felt too . . . real.

“What was that?” Mr. Blackmon asks.