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“No, Frederick,” the teacher replied. “He’s like Samson. If you cut his hair, he’ll lose his powers of math.” Noah laughed with the class.

Noah had avoided Frederick in the halls and at lunch. In class, Frederick’s comments were largely innocuous, because the teacher was in the room. The presence of adults didn’t deter other kids from making rude comments, however. A senior in Noah’s computer class constantly made fun of Noah’s ethnicity. This week he had said, “Are you sure you can read that board? Your eyes are pretty squinted.” The senior pulled up the corners of his eyes with his fingers.

“When I look in the mirror, my eyes don’t look like that,” Noah retorted, copying the gesture. “Maybe you should stop before people start making comments to you.”

Now that swimming was about to resume, Noah wondered what the season had in store for him. His top swimming goal was to qualify for the district championships. Noah liked swimming, if not all of his teammates, but the beginning of swim season inevitably meant the end of band, his favorite school activity.

Many of the bandies were ready for football season to end. They wanted their Friday nights back. During the most recent football game, which Redsen won by multiple touchdowns, some band members cheered when the opposing team scored. Word spread to the football players, who angrily blamed the entire band and berated the bandies’ disloyalty.

A few periods after calculus, Noah’s gym classmates had chatted with a handful of football players about the upcoming game. One player said, “This Friday is going to be close. Maybe if the band”—here he shoved Noah, who stumbled a few feet—“didn’t cheer for the other team, it’d be easier.” The populars in the room cackled. This happened several more times. Noah didn’t bother explaining that he wanted the football players to keep winning so that he could cling to band season for as long as possible. The football team lost the next game.

Fortunately, Noah had other good things going on in his life. In mid-autumn, Redsen had hosted its annual speech competition. Noah spoke about the advantages of certain expensive swimsuits that, using increased compression technology, could reduce swimmers’ times by an average of 3 to 5 percent. Noah’s speech had won first place.

Noah jolted back into the present. The band seemed to be playing through. He saw the gap twenty feet ahead of him. Noah panicked. His head spun as he weighed his choices: drive now, and fast, into the spot that the band already expected him to be in, or wait, risking the director’s wrath because he wasn’t in position.

In the split second he had to make his choice, Noah scrutinized the rapidly closing gap and thought he could squeeze into it. He shot forward, more quickly than usual. Belatedly, he realized that the mallet player who was supposed to be on Noah’s left by now was one step too far forward, followed by the rest of his line. The hole wasn’t big enough. As Noah hurtled toward it, marchers closed in behind him, blocking his reverse. “Stop! Stop, stop! Don’t march!” Noah yelled. No one heard him over the music.

The line to Noah’s right completed its maneuver and began moving toward Noah. He knew a collision was inevitable unless he continued to attempt to squeeze into the gap. He slammed on the accelerator, trying to scream through the din of the instruments for the drum majors to cut, as he careened toward the space that was shrinking by the beat. He almost made it. “Look out!” someone hollered.

Half of the band, unseeing, continued to advance toward Noah, while the other half marched in place, staring with horror as the front bumper hit a trombonist’s leg below the knee, knocking him over. “Oh my God!” someone yelled. “What the hell are you doing?” another bandie screamed. From behind, Noah heard other shouts. “What’s going on?!” “Is he okay?”

Noah stared in shock, terrified. He had just hit one of his best friends with a golf cart. The director