My fists were gripped tightly as mom dropped me off at school the next morning. I rubbed my right pocket every five minutes to make sure the rubber controllers were still there. First period came. Mrs. Ledbetter was still out sick and Mrs. Swanson was still taking her place. Throughout the class, I kept glancing at the door for someone to give me a pass to Principal Van Dooren’s office. Mrs. Swanson had to say, “Sir, could you please stop looking at the door and pay attention,” in her soft, raspy voice at least four times. Second period came, then third period, and still no call to Principal Van Dooren’s office for me.

My legs felt jittery and my hands were shaking in the anxiety to fix everything. The sound of clock ticking was getting louder and louder, at least to me. The bell rang at 12:11 and once again, the class was sent to lunch.

For the first time ever, I was really frustrated that it was lunchtime. I had no idea why, I guess it was because I had absolutely no appetite and just wanted to see Principal Van Dooren so badly. That reminded me to rub my right pocket again, the bumps of the rubber controllers were still there. I looked down and realized that I had no sack lunch with me. I must have left it in first period or something. I just plain did not care, I had no appetite anyways.

When I arrived at the cafeteria, my first instinct was to look at my usual table with Brett and Avery. However, they weren’t there! Something was wrong; Brett and Avery are always the first ones to reach the cafeteria because their third period classrooms were much closer to the cafeteria than mine. More, they always text me if they were going to be gone for school, and I have heard nothing from either of them.

I looked around the cafeteria and every one was sitting in their usual spots: the eighth graders always sat closest to the stage, the sixth and seventh grade girls were at their usual spot by the windows, and the football jocks sat closest to the lunch line.

I suddenly remembered Hector throwing my tuna salad from the lunch line to the window yesterday as I was looking at that exact same area. I studied the jock table for a few seconds and there he was, Hector Markowski.

My head became light in an instant, my palms became frozen in their spots, and my body became stiff as a piece of plank wood when I found a boy wearing a Chicago cubs baseball cap and an emo kid sitting with Hector.

I wasn’t sure what exactly I was doing as I was staring at the sight of my two best friends sitting with my worst enemy. I took a few steps back and realized that Hector was surveying around the cafeteria. I took one last look at Brett and noticed that he had a black spot on his right arm as he was taking a bite out of his sandwich.

Oh no! I finally realized why Brett and Avery were sitting with Hector and why he was looking around. First, he used two of the three rubber stoppers to make Brett and Avery become his best friends. Second, he was looking for me.