I focus on Marcel. She looks around as if her name was called and flashes a crooked yet toothy smile at me. Without turning from our locked stare, she bumps Kutter to gain his attention. The two of them sit on the dividing line between the boys and the girls. She raises her carton of milk but doesn’t take a drink, instead using it to block her lips from my view. She needn’t have bothered because I suck at reading lips. Kutter bobs his head, a wry sneer spreading across his mouth. He smothers a laugh. Glaring at me gives me the gist of whatever flutter of conversation they exchange. Marcel tips her milk toward me in mocking toast.

“Sheep and wolves,” I say finally.

“Which are you?” Mr. Blackmon asks.

“Neither.” I’m not someone who follows what everyone else does or tries to hide unnoticed. But I’m not going to hunt my people and gobble them up, either. I’m something else, I guess.

“How do you think they see you?” Mr. Blackmon picks out a carrot stick with great flourish to allow a moment for the question to sink in. I know his little tricks.

I mull Marcel’s words, churning them in my mind over and over again, trying to make sense of them. Look to those closest to me? Nehemiah, Twon, Rodrigo? There’s got to be a clue in there somewhere. Or maybe a warning. This may all be part of her game. Get my head spinning so that I’m too caught up to catch whatever she’s up to.

“A lion,” I say finally. “The other wolves play at being bad, but they’re scared that I can come down at any time and hunt any of them.”

“Is that how you see yourself?” This is what I mean. Mr. Blackmon just can’t help it. Every conversation transforms into an opportunity to push into me. He’s a walking, talking after-school movie intent on teaching me something. The level of concern almost suffocates me and makes talking to him too intense, almost a drain, and I need to concentrate.

“Mr. Blackmon, you need more than carrots in your diet,” I say.

“Okay, I get the message. It’s just you reminded me of something. You ever watch Road Runner cartoons?”

I perk up a little. “Yeah. Sometimes they run those old cartoons on the Cartoon Network.”

“Uh-huh.” Mr. Blackmon takes the dig in stride. “Every so often they show episodes that didn’t focus on Road Runner but on Wile E. Coyote and Sam Sheepdog.”

“Actually, it was Ralph Wolf. They just drew him like Wile E. Coyote.”

“What have I told you about sentences that begin with ‘actually’? No one likes a know-it-all.” Mr. Blackmon’s glasses slip down his nose. He straightens the seam of his sweater vest. “Anyway, Ralph”—Mr. Blackmon emphasizes the noted correction—“and Sam were both on the clock, each had a job to do. Ralph’s was to catch the sheep; Sam’s was to protect the sheep. They weren’t mad at each other; they were just being true to their natures.”