I figure because she’s so young and new, Mrs. Fitzgerald feels like she has a lot to prove. Plus every new principal wants things done their way. Partly to show there’s a new sheriff in town, partly to shake things up. Every new teacher or principal has it in their head that they’re going to fix everything. Especially us. It’s like we’re lab rats in some kind of science experiment. Too bad I’ve never had a taste for cheese.

“Thelonius Mitchell, you spend so much time on that bench they should name it after you,” Mrs. Carson says. She’s the head of hospitality, office manager, and school nurse.

“I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding.” I take my seat.

“It always is with you.” She shakes her head and continues her work.

I put on my best innocent face, my thick braids flopping like a mophead when I tilt my chin. Now is one of those times I wish I wore glasses. I have a theory that people always trust folks who wear glasses more. I begin to tick off the things I may or may not have done wrong since the assembly incident that might have come back to bite me:

• removing all the toilet paper from the adult restrooms

• borrowing my homeroom teacher’s credit card so I could pay for online poker

• locking the girls’ locker room after releasing a half-dozen mice in there

To be fair, I am only in the planning stages of swiping the snack baskets from the middle school breakfast (getting them isn’t the problem, nor is getting them out the building an issue once I divert the security camera near the back stairwell. Sneaking them home is the real stumbling block).

Now that I think about it, I should probably wear about six pairs of glasses at all times.

“Well, well, well. Look who we have here. If it isn’t Felonius.” Marcel Washington slips out of the principal’s office and closes the door behind her as if she owns the place. She wears black and brown tortoiseshell glasses. Now those are some trust builders. No wonder teachers adore her. She wears her hair straight and sashays about like she just wakes up every morning with every strand in place. She also has her momma’s fair skin. A lone brown freckle dots her lip just above her smirk. “I guess it’s no surprise . . . considering.”

“Considering what?” I arch an eyebrow at her. Marcel always has a tone in her voice like she knows something you don’t, but she wants you to know that she knows.

“Mrs. Fitzgerald will tell you.”

“You in trouble, too?”

“Too? You must have me confused with one of your fellow knuckleheads. I was called down to be put in charge of the student ambassadors. You’re here because you’re . . . you.” She nudges her glasses higher up her nose with her index finger. She has a way of looking at everyone as if they are small.