Lucky Cap by Patrick Jennings

stuff like that. Some kids had formed hacky sack circles, but most stood around, talking. A few kids had wandered off alone, with their lunches and their books. I guessed these were kids new to town or losers: kids with no old friends, kids who’d made no new friends that day, kids who never made friends.
    I was relieved I’d attracted two new cool friends already. I wasn’t sure if I should count Lance as a friend, but I knew that he’d at least try to hang out with me as long as Chase did. And Chase definitely liked me. Plus I’d been nominated class president. And girls were staring at me and whispering. Whether or not all that was good, it sure beat sitting alone on bleachers, nibbling a PB&J or reading a book and trying to pretend it didn’t bother you that you were alone.
    And then I spotted Kai by himself on the bleachers. He was now eating a sandwich and jabbing at his cell phone. He wasn’t calling anyone; he was playing a game. Probably Tetris. That was his favorite. He played it all the time. To me, trying to get all those boxes to fit together felt more like cleaning the garage than playing a game. I was glad he was too absorbed to see me.
    â€œLet’s go back inside,” I said to Chase.
    He laughed.

    My next class was social studies. Lance was in it, as was Iris, Misa (the blonde who was peeking at me), and Kai. When me and Lance walked in, there weren’t any two seats together, so we split up. This didn’t bother either of us.
    Kai eagerly pointed to a seat beside him where he’d set his backpack, and was whisper-chanting, “Enz! Enz! Enz!” I pretended not to notice. I saw a seat open next to Iris, but she still had that smug look on her face from the last time I saw her. There was an open seat in front of Misa, but I didn’t want her behind me, staring at me and whispering all period. So I kept going and took a seat in the back of the room. It wasn’t till I sat down that I realized the kid with the bow tie from the lunch line was sitting in the desk beside me.
    â€œHello, Enzo,” he said.
    I nodded at him.
    â€œMaybe you don’t remember me,” he went on. “Giovanni Gordillo. My friends call me Gio. I’m the kid you defended in the lunch line today. The one who is running for class president against you? The one who is going to win, too, I’m afraid.”
    The kid just beamed at me. What was with him anyway? Didn’t he know where he was? And whose idea was the bow tie? And the slicked-down hair with the part that exposed half an inch of scalp?
    â€œYour name is short for something, I suspect,” he said. “Are you Italian, by chance? My grand-parents emigrated from Italy…”
    â€œExcuse me, Gio,” I said, and stood up and moved over a couple rows. I’d had to shun my best friend for being a dork. I wasn’t going to let an even dorkier kid attach himself to me like some sort of dork barnacle.
    Kai, who was now a few seats in front of me, twisted around and was hissing and snapping his fingers, trying to get my attention. Lance was looking back and forth between Kai and me, and grinning. I knew what that meant: he was going to try to use Kai to ruin my standing with Chase.
    Misa kept sneaking little peaks at me over her shoulder and blushing. Iris was looking over her shoulder at me, too—and down her nose.
    I ignored all of them. I didn’t like being a creep, but I told myself it wasn’t my fault. Middle school did not reward people for basic human decency. In middle school, it was survival of the fittest. And I was pretty fit.
    I had to remember that it was I who had been given the cap, and with it came great responsibilities. Owning the cap meant I needed to model excellence and attain glory. I could not let Kai drag me down. I couldn’t let anyone do that. I had the cap. Greatness was my destiny.
    My last class of the day was science, taught by a Ms. Savjani. I had