Maybe I’ll ask the teacher about it.

I even told Margaret about going into Steve’s basement one night without food and not leaving the cold room until the next night.

A whole twenty-eight hours—wait. Are there twenty-eight or twenty-four hours in a day?

Ugh. It doesn’t matter because I saw her write “active imagination” after I told her last week. That was three weeks after I hit a teacher on the first week of school and ended up here… at another school. In my defense, the teacher called me a menace when I wasn’t being one.

So I showed him what a real menace looked like.

Then that stupid teacher called me an “attention seeker.” Frick him.

Anyway, I have a plan. Perez said there’s one other school in the area. If I get kicked out of this school and the other, Margaret said they won’t have a choice but to move me to another city or a group home. And then her brows will pinch, then she’ll say, “Again, Roman, really? We talked about this.”

Not like moving me would make any difference. All the schools will be crap, and all the teachers will be the same.

The vice principal of Woodside Elementary and Ms. Something are saying the same thing the last school told me. I’m only listening to snippets of it as we walk to class.

We’re here to support you, Roman.

We understand moving to another school in the middle of the year is very scary.

All the other kids are going to love you, Roman.

We want what’s best for you, Roman.

It’s what they all say. But they don’t mean it, because if they did, they wouldn’t make me live with someone like Steve.

Or Troy.

The dad at the last house was a fan of throwing things to practice his aim. He liked using us kids as moving targets. The mom of the house did her best to make up for it by making sure there was food on the table every day, even if it was just a slice of bread.

The mom at my current house sucks as much as the dad. The last time either of them remembered to feed the three of us was yesterday morning.

I am fucking hungry, to say the least.

But whatever, I’ll be gone soon enough, and who knows if the next house will be worse than Troy and Steve combined.

The school here has classrooms spread around to circle the main field. All I’m focused on is the corner, where there’s a blind spot between the fence and a building. No one would know someone is there unless they walk that way.

It’s perfect.

We enter the locker area between two classrooms, and Ms. Something takes my empty bag from me to put it on a free hook. She doesn’t wait for me before going into what I’m guessing is my temporary classroom—before I get moved, that is.

I turn my head in time to hear two boys laughing at a little girl rummaging through a bag. Her dark pigtails fall over her face as she turns away from them when one of the boys—the skinny one—says, “Hey, Isa.” The uglier one hits the skinny one’s shoulder, snickering like he can’t wait for the joke. “Say raspberry.”

They both burst into a fit of laughter, throwing their heads back as if it was the funniest thing they’ve ever said.

It’s not. How the hell is saying raspberry even funny?

The girl looks up at the two boys, bottom lip quivering and eyes glistening as she hugs herself.

Get a grip.

I roll my eyes and follow the vice principal into the classroom. Those types of bullies are boring and weak, always running their mouths, and wouldn’t know what a punch is until it hits them. Once it does, they either figure out how to throw one back and make it fun for me, or they cry and beg. Both outcomes seem good to me, especially when they end up doing both.

Other than finding out the classroom I share a building with is two grades below me, nothing eventful happens in class with my overenthusiastic teacher trying to convince everyone learning is fun.

As soon as the lunch bell rings, I grab my bag and beeline to the blind spot tucked away in the corner.

All the other students exit the rooms and head straight onto the field and playground, making this corner of paradise all mine. At this time of the day, the sun sits just right, so the place is only partly covered by shade. Splinters threaten my skin as I slide down the fence and onto the pavement. The sun sears my face, but I’d rather burn than be cold in the shadows. I’m not interested in feeling the sharp chill again.

Not after Steve put me in the basement.

My stomach sinks angrily when I open my backpack. I shouldn’t have gotten used to finding food in my bag rather than a pencil, book, and beer bottle cap. I expect nothing less from useless Steve.

Would Margaret call this an active imagination? Frick her, and frick Steve. She’d probably call the house, and Steve would tell her a heroic story about how he slaved away making my lunch, only for me to forget it. Then I’d hear that line I hate hearing everyone say about me.

Attention seeking.

They’re wrong. I don’t want their attention. There’s nothing good that can come from it.

Even the basement wouldn’t be all bad if it wasn’t so cold and quiet and I wasn’t so hungry. No one to yell at me? No one to hit me?

As I said, the less attention, the better.

It’s safe in there. But scary. And my lungs do that weird thing where they hurt, and it gets hard to breathe. I hate it.

Attention seeking.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Margaret.

Grabbing the used textbook and blunt pencil, I let my hands do all the talking while my brain continues flashing pictures I can’t keep up with. It’s so loud I wish it would shut up for two minutes.

Thick, angry strokes of graphite form shapes on the lined page. Circles and triangles, one right after the other, until a boy smiles with his razor-sharp teeth while the people around him scream.

My hand freezes as a chill falls over me—like the feeling of being watched. I snap up at the intruder with a glare, and the girl stiffens in shock. She looks just like a cartoon with her big brown eyes gawking at me… right before the familiar look I know all too well transforms it.

I’ve seen it on the cartoon mouse—I think his name is Jerry—when he sees Tom or when I come into class bruised and bloodied. Fear.

Her bottom lip trembles like it did when the two boys teased her in the locker area. She gulps as she looks between the field and me, then back at the field, like she’s trying to decide who’s the worst monster.

When she drops her head down, I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief, but then she goes ahead and ruins my lunch by walking over to me.

I scowl at her. She’s clearly decided I’m less of a threat to her than Skinny and Ugly. Her worn sneakers scuff against the concrete pavement as she shuffles to a spot a few feet away from me. I stare at her, daring her to look me in the eye.

I don’t care if this was her spot before, because this is my spot now.

Until I leave, at least.

Minutes pass, and the tension radiates from her as she sits there, staring at the wall, still like a rock. So freaking still. Now, because of her, my hand doesn’t want to work. Nothing is going onto the page the way it should. The straight lines are curved, and the curved lines are straight.

I’m not feeling it, and it’s all her fault.

I’ve seen kittens less nervous than her. If I listen closely enough, I’m convinced she isn’t breathing, and the lack of sound coming from her is pissing me off.

It’s so quiet. What the hell is her problem?

“Loosen up,” I snap.

I’m not touching her, not even looking at her. She just needs to chill out.

With a squeak, she yanks her bright pink bag to her chest with shaky hands. It’s one of those nice backpacks with glitter and stuff on it. I bet she’s actually a fancy pants. Her parents probably packed her lunch. With her ridiculously wonky pigtails, I’m sure they put some stupid note in her bag, saying they love her and hope she has a good day.