Chapter 1: The Crunch Heard Around the World

I’ve always been invisible. That’s my superpower. I’m Sam, the kid who sits three tables away from the action, nursing a lukewarm Dr. Pepper and observing the ecosystem of Oak Creek High. It’s a jungle, and like any jungle, it has predators and prey.

Braden Miller was the apex predator.

He was six-foot-two, carved out of granite and entitlement, with a varsity jacket that cost more than my first car. He was the quarterback, the prom king, and the guy who made teachers giggle nervously when he flashed his smile. He could do no wrong.

Then there was Luna.

Luna was the prey. Or at least, that’s what we all thought. She transferred in three months ago. She was tiny, pale, and always drowning in these oversized grey hoodies. She sat alone, ate alone, and walked the halls with her head down.

The only thing distinctive about her were the hearing aids. They weren’t the sleek, invisible Bluetooth ones you see nowadays. These were clunky, beige plastic monstrosities that sat heavy behind her ears, with wires disappearing into her collar.

We all assumed she was deaf. She never spoke in class. If a teacher called on her, she’d just point to her ears and shake her head. The teachers let it slide. The students ignored her.

Until today.

It was Tuesday, sloppy joe day. The cafeteria smelled like grease and floor wax. The noise level was at its usual roar—shouting, laughing, trays clattering.

I was watching Braden hold court at the “cool table.” He was bored. I could see it in the way he spun his apple on the table. He was looking for entertainment.

He spotted Luna walking past his table with her tray.

He stuck his foot out. It was lazy, predictable, and cruel.

Luna tripped. She didn’t sprawl, though. She stumbled, catching herself with a grace that was almost unnatural. But in the motion, one of her hearing aids dislodged. It clattered onto the floor, sliding right next to Braden’s pristine Jordan sneaker.

The cafeteria went quiet. It’s amazing how fast teenagers can smell blood in the water.

“Oops,” Braden sneered, looking down at the device. “Watch where you’re going, silent movie.”

Luna froze. She didn’t look at him. She just stared at the device on the floor.

“Please,” she said. It was the first time I’d ever heard her speak. Her voice was soft, barely a whisper. “Don’t touch that.”

Braden’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, it speaks! I thought you were broken.”

He looked at his friends. They were snickering. That was all the fuel he needed.

He lifted his foot.

“Don’t!” Luna shouted.

Crunch.

The sound was sickening. It wasn’t just plastic cracking. It was a dense, metallic squelch. Like crushing a complex machine.

Braden ground his heel into it, twisting back and forth, really making sure it was destroyed.

“My bad,” he laughed, lifting his foot to reveal the debris. “Didn’t see your little radio there.”

The device was obliterated. Shards of beige plastic were mixed with complex green circuitry, copper wiring, and something that looked like a black microchip.

A tiny red light on the crushed board flickered once—bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt—rapid fire.

Then it died.

Chapter 2: The Assessment

The silence in the cafeteria was absolute. We were all waiting for the reaction. The tears. The running away. The humiliation.

Braden was smiling, waiting for her to crumble.

But Luna didn’t move like a high school girl.

She dropped to a crouch. Her movements were fluid, precise. She picked up the largest piece of the wreckage. She inspected it, turning it over in her hand.

I was close enough to see her face. The fear I expected to see wasn’t there. Instead, her eyes were scanning the broken wires with a cold, terrifying intensity. She looked like she was doing math in her head. Complex math.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a second, and then stood up.

She pulled her hood back.

I had never really looked at her face before. She had a scar running just under her hairline, barely visible. Her eyes were dark, piercing, and completely devoid of teenage angst.

She looked at Braden. She didn’t look up at him; she looked through him.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

Her voice had changed. The whisper was gone. It was replaced by a tone that was level, smooth, and authoritative. It was the voice of a woman, not a girl.

Braden blinked, confused by the lack of tears. “What? Speak up, freak. I can’t hear you.”

Luna stepped closer. She was in his personal space now. Braden flinched back instinctively, which was weird, considering he had a hundred pounds on her.

“That wasn’t a hearing aid,” Luna said, her voice carrying across the silent room. “That was a encrypted sub-dural transceiver.”

“A what?” Braden laughed, looking at his friends. “Is she speaking alien?”

“And that crush,” Luna continued, ignoring his mockery, “just triggered a Class-A distress beacon. It signals that an asset has been compromised and requires immediate extraction.”

She looked at her wrist. I noticed for the first time she was wearing a watch. It wasn’t an Apple Watch. It was a chunky, matte-black tactical piece with a blank face. She tapped it twice.

“You have approximately ninety minutes before the containment team arrives,” she said, almost to herself.

“You’re crazy,” Braden spat. “You’re actually psycho.”

“And you,” Luna looked him dead in the eye, “have just committed a federal felony. Interference with government property. Assault on a federal officer.”

Federal officer?

The room rippled with whispers. Was she joking? Was this some kind of LARP?

“Get out of my face,” Braden growled, his bravado slipping just a fraction. He went to shove her shoulder.

Luna didn’t block him. She just shifted her weight. A subtle, microscopic movement. Braden’s hand missed her shoulder and he stumbled forward, looking clumsy and foolish.

She looked at him with pity. Genuine pity.

“Enjoy your lunch, Braden,” she said. “It’s going to be your last decent meal for a long time.”

She turned on her heel and walked out. She didn’t run. She marched. Her stride was long and purposeful. She left her tray of uneaten sloppy joes on the table.

Braden stood there, face red, fists clenched. “Yeah, run away! Freak!” he yelled after her.

He turned back to his table, high-fiving his buddies. “Did you hear that? ‘Federal Officer.’ Chick is delusional.”

Everyone laughed. The tension broke. The noise returned.

I looked at the floor where the crushed device lay. I walked over, pretending to throw away my soda can. I glanced down.

Among the plastic shards, there was a small piece of metal casing. It was stamped with tiny letters. I squinted.

PROPERTY OF US GOV – DEPT OF DEFENSE – CLASSIFIED.

A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.

I looked at the clock on the wall.

12:15 PM.

If Luna wasn’t crazy… if she was telling the truth… something was going to happen at 1:45 PM.

I went to my next class, AP History, but I couldn’t focus. I kept watching the clock.

1:00 PM. Nothing.

1:30 PM. The school was normal. Birds chirping. Kids texting.

1:40 PM. Braden was in the classroom next to mine. I could hear him laughing through the wall.

1:44 PM.

I was staring out the window that faced the main entrance and the football field.

Then, I saw it.

On the horizon, three black dots appeared in the sky. They were moving fast. Low.

Helicopters.

And on the ground, the main road leading to the school was suddenly blocked.

Two black SUVs smashed through the wooden gate at the entrance of the parking lot, not even slowing down. They tore across the grass, kicking up mud and turf, heading straight for the main doors.

The PA system crackled to life.

“Attention. This is a Federal Lockdown,” a voice boomed. It wasn’t Principal Higgins. It wasn’t the secretary. It sounded like God, if God was angry and speaking through a megaphone.

“Remain in your classrooms. Keep away from the windows. This is not a drill.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. I looked at the clock.

1:45 PM.

Exactly on time.

Chapter 3: The Wolf at the Door

I’ve sat through a dozen lockdown drills since kindergarten. We all know the routine. Turn off the lights, lock the door, huddle in the corner away from the glass, and be quiet. It’s usually a mix of nervous giggles and boredom.

This was not that.

This was primal fear.

Outside the window, the scene looked like a clip from a Jason Bourne movie. The black SUVs formed a perimeter around the cafeteria entrance. I counted twelve men. They moved with a synchronization that was terrifying to watch. No wasted movement. No hesitation.

They were clad in full tactical gear—heavy body armor, ballistic helmets, and faces covered by black balaclavas. They carried rifles that looked far too serious for a suburban high school.

“Get away from the window, Sam!” Mrs. Gable hissed, her voice trembling. She was usually a strict, no-nonsense teacher, but her face was ashen. She fumbled with the classroom door lock, her hands shaking so bad she dropped her keys twice.

I scrambled to the back corner of the room, squeezing in between the file cabinets and the whiteboard. The rest of the class was already there, huddled in a pile of denim and fear. Some girls were crying silently. Everyone was texting, their screens lighting up the dim corner.

“Are we under attack?” “Is it a shooter?” “I saw a sniper on the roof.”

The rumors were flying faster than the wifi could carry them.

Then came the noise from the hallway.

It wasn’t gunfire. It was the heavy, rhythmic thud of boots. Lots of them. Running.

THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.

“CLEAR LEFT! CLEAR RIGHT!” a voice bellowed from the hall. It was deep, distorted by a gas mask or a comms system.

“ROOM 102 CLEAR. MOVING TO TARGET.”

My heart stopped. Target?

We were in Room 104. Braden was in Room 105, right next door.

The sounds grew louder. They were right outside. I could hear the heavy breathing, the clanking of gear.

Then, a sound that made us all jump out of our skins.

CRASH.

The door to Room 105 wasn’t unlocked. It was breached. I heard the wood splinter and the heavy slam of a battering ram.

“FEDERAL AGENTS! HANDS! SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!”

Screams erupted from next door. It was chaos.

“GET DOWN! EVERYBODY DOWN!”

I could hear Mr. Henderson, the math teacher next door, shouting, “Don’t shoot! They’re just kids!”

“SECURE THE PERIMETER,” the commanding voice ordered. “LOCATE SUBJECT: MILLER, BRADEN.”

I froze. They knew his name.

Through the thin drywall, I heard the distinctive, panicked voice of our star quarterback.

“Hey! Get off me! You can’t touch me! My dad is a lawyer!”

“SUBJECT SECURED,” the agent barked.

“Ow! You’re hurting me! I didn’t do anything!” Braden screamed. He sounded like a child. All the bravado, all the swagger—gone in an instant.

“Check him for the device,” another voice said. Cold. Clinical.

“I don’t have a device! It was just a prank! I broke her hearing aid! I’ll pay for it, okay? I have money!” Braden was sobbing now.

“Negative on the device. Subject is clean. Bringing him out.”

I crawled slightly forward, risking a look through the small vertical window in our classroom door. I had to see.

What I saw will stay with me forever.

Chapter 4: The Marshal

The hallway was filled with smoke—maybe from a flashbang or just the dust of the door being kicked in. Through the haze, I saw them.

Six tactical officers were dragging Braden down the hall. His feet were barely touching the ground. His varsity jacket was torn at the shoulder. He was handcuffed, zip-tied, and blubbering.

“Please! Tell them, Mr. Henderson! Tell them I’m a good kid!”

But nobody was listening.

The officers stopped suddenly. They snapped to attention, pressing themselves against the lockers to create a path.

A figure walked through the smoke, coming from the direction of the cafeteria.

It was Luna.

But the girl who had shuffled through the halls in oversized hoodies was gone.

She was wearing dark cargo pants, combat boots, and a fitted Kevlar vest. Across the chest, in bold yellow letters, it read: US MARSHAL.

She wasn’t wearing a balaclava. Her hair was pulled back in a tight, severe ponytail. On her hip was a holstered sidearm. She looked dangerous. She looked lethal.

She stopped in front of Braden.

The officers holding Braden yanked him upright so he had to look at her.

“L-Luna?” Braden stammered, his eyes wide, snot running down his nose. “Luna, tell them! It was a joke! We were just messing around!”

Luna didn’t blink. She looked at him with the same expression you’d use to look at a cockroach you just found in your kitchen.

“Agent Walker,” she said. She wasn’t speaking to Braden. She was speaking to the massive guy holding Braden’s left arm.

“Yes, Ma’am,” the giant replied.

“Ma’am?” Braden squeaked. “She’s a student! She’s in my remedial English class!”

Luna stepped forward, leaning in close to Braden’s face.

“My name is not Luna,” she said softly, but her voice echoed in the silent hallway. “I am Senior Special Agent Elena Vance, Fugitive Recovery Task Force.”

Braden’s mouth fell open.

“And you,” she continued, “didn’t just break a hearing aid. You destroyed a prototype frequency-scrambling key that I was using to track a domestic terror cell operating out of this county.”

Braden stared at her, his brain unable to process the information.

“Terror… what?”

“For three months,” she said, her voice rising slightly, “I have been undercover. I have been invisible. I have been gathering intel. I was hours away—hours—from closing a net on a shipment of illegal arms.”

She pointed a gloved finger at his chest.

“But then you decided to be funny. You crushed the transponder. The signal died. The targets were alerted that their comms were compromised. They went dark immediately.”

She stepped back, disgust written all over her face.

“You blew an eighteen-month operation, kid. Because you wanted a laugh.”

Braden was trembling. “I… I didn’t know.”

“Ignorance is not immunity,” she said coldly. “Read him his rights. Title 18, Section 111. Assaulting a federal officer. Plus destruction of government property. And obstruction of justice.”

“Wait! No! You can’t arrest me! I have prom next week!” Braden wailed.

“Book him,” Luna—Elena—said, turning her back on him. “And get his shoes. I want those Jordans as evidence. They have the transceiver fragments embedded in the sole.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

As they dragged Braden away, screaming for his mother, Elena stopped. She looked directly at the door of Room 104.

She looked right at the little window where I was peeking out.

Our eyes met.

She didn’t smile. She didn’t wave. She just gave a single, sharp nod. Acknowledgment.

Then she tapped her earpiece—a real one this time, sleek and professional.

“Command, this is Vance. The school is secure. The asset is compromised. We are burning the cover. Get the chopper ready for extraction. I’m done with high school.”

She walked down the hall, flanked by her team, leaving the wreckage of Oak Creek High’s social hierarchy in her wake.

The lockdown was lifted an hour later. Braden never came back to school.

But the story didn’t end there. Because when the FBI raids your school, they don’t just leave. They start asking questions.

And it turned out, Braden wasn’t just a bully. He was hiding something too. Something that Luna had sniffed out weeks ago, and the crushed hearing aid was just the detonator.

Chapter 5: The Principal’s Office

You’d think after a federal raid, they’d send us home. Maybe call in the buses, send a “thoughts and prayers” email to the parents, and give us a week off to process the trauma.

Nope.

Oak Creek High was turned into a temporary command post. The gym was filled with agents analyzing data. The library was an interrogation center. And the cafeteria—the crime scene—was taped off with yellow hazard tape.

We were herded back into our homerooms. Teachers tried to teach, but nobody was listening. We were all refreshing Twitter. #OakCreekRaid was trending worldwide.

Then, the PA system beeped again.

“Sam Walker. Please report to the Principal’s office immediately.”

My stomach did a backflip. I wasn’t a troublemaker. I was the invisible kid. Why did they want me?

I walked down the hallway. It felt like walking to the gallows. An agent in a suit was waiting for me at the office door. He didn’t smile. He just opened the door and gestured for me to go inside.

Principal Higgins wasn’t sitting at his desk. He was standing in the corner, looking sweaty and terrified.

Sitting at the big mahogany desk was Luna. Or Agent Vance.

She had ditched the Kevlar vest but was still wearing the tactical pants and a black t-shirt. Her gun was on the desk, right next to a stack of files. She was drinking a carton of chocolate milk—the school cafeteria kind. It was such a jarring image. The deadly marshal sipping from a tiny cardboard box.

“Sit down, Sam,” she said. Her voice was calm, familiar. It was weirdly comforting and terrifying at the same time.

I sat. “Am I in trouble?”

“That depends,” she said, setting the milk down. “You sit three tables away from Braden every day. You have a direct line of sight to his locker from your homeroom. You’re observant. You notice things other people don’t.”

“I… I guess,” I stammered.

“I need to know what you saw last Thursday. In the parking lot. Before first period.”

I racked my brain. Thursday? That was days ago.

“I don’t know… I saw him parking his car?”

Luna leaned forward. Her eyes were intense. “Think, Sam. Braden doesn’t carry his own books. He’s lazy. But on Thursday, he carried a heavy duffel bag into the school himself. He didn’t let his friends touch it. Did you see who he met by the bleachers?”

The memory clicked.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I did. It was… it was the janitor. Mr. Russo.”

Principal Higgins gasped in the corner. “Mr. Russo? He’s been with us for twenty years!”

Luna didn’t look surprised. “Russo took the bag?”

“No,” I said. “Russo gave him the bag. Braden gave Russo an envelope. It looked thick.”

Luna nodded, satisfied. She opened a file folder and scribbled a note.

“That confirms it,” she said to the agent at the door. “Pick up the janitor. He’s the handler.”

“Wait,” I said, my voice shaking. “What is going on? Is Braden a spy or something?”

Luna looked at me, debating how much to say.

“Braden isn’t a spy, Sam. He’s a mule. A courier.”

Chapter 6: The Million Dollar Locker

“Courier for what?” I asked.

Luna stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the chaotic parking lot.

“You think I spent three months in high school hell just to catch a kid bullying people?” she asked, a dry chuckle escaping her lips. “This school is a distribution hub.”

“Drugs?” I guessed.

“Worse. Military-grade microprocessors. Stolen form a defense contractor in Seattle. They are small, incredibly expensive, and illegal to export. Someone realized that a high school is the perfect cover. Who checks a teenager’s backpack? Who suspects the star quarterback?”

My jaw hit the floor. Braden? The guy who struggled to pass Algebra I?

“Braden doesn’t know what he’s moving,” Luna explained. “He thinks he’s moving stolen iPhones or high-end gaming chips. He gets paid a few thousand dollars a drop, buys his sneakers, and feels like a gangster. He has no idea he’s helping a foreign intelligence agency build guidance systems for missiles.”

“And the hearing aid?” I asked.

“It was a scanner,” Luna said. “A passive frequency scanner. I was programmed to detect the specific radiological signature of those chips. Today at lunch, when Braden walked by, my device went crazy. It was screaming. He had the chips on him.”

She turned back to me.

“He triggered the beacon because he stomped on it. But the reason I confronted him… the reason I blew my cover… wasn’t just because he broke my tech. It was because the scan confirmed he was holding the payload right then and there.”

She looked at the clock.

“We have Braden. We have the handler, Russo. But we’re missing the payload. We searched Braden. He’s clean. He must have ditched the bag somewhere between the parking lot and the cafeteria.”

She looked me dead in the eye.

“You know his habits, Sam. If Braden needed to hide something fast, where would he put it? Not his locker—too obvious. Not his car—too far.”

I thought about Braden. He was arrogant, but he was also lazy. He wouldn’t go out of his way.

Then I remembered.

“The trophy case,” I said.

Luna raised an eyebrow. “The trophy case in the main hall?”

“Yeah. The lock on the glass is broken. Everyone knows it. We use it to sneak snacks in there sometimes. Braden… he loves that case. His picture is in there three times. He thinks it’s his shrine.”

Luna grabbed her radio. “Team Two, move to the main hallway. North wall. Trophy case.”

She looked at me. “Come on, Sam. Let’s see if you’re right.”

We walked out of the office. Walking next to Agent Vance felt surreal. Students pressed against the classroom windows, watching us pass. I felt like I was in a movie.

We reached the main hall. Two agents were already there, gloved hands ready.

Luna nodded at them.

One agent carefully slid the glass door of the trophy case open. It didn’t make a sound.

They pushed aside a golden football trophy from 1998.

Behind it, stuffed into the back corner, was a blue gym bag.

Luna pulled it out. She unzipped it slowly.

Inside, nestled in protective foam, were six silver canisters. They looked like oversized hard drives.

“Bingo,” Luna whispered. She let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for months.

She turned to me and, for the first time, she actually smiled. A real smile.

“Good eyes, Sam. You just saved national security a hell of a headache.”

“Does this mean I get an A in Civics?” I joked nervously.

“I think I can arrange that,” she said.

But just as the agents were securing the bag, the radio on Luna’s shoulder crackled with static. A frantic voice cut through.

“Agent Vance! We have a problem! We lost Russo!”

Luna’s face went hard as stone. “What do you mean you lost him? He’s a sixty-year-old janitor!”

“He’s… he’s not a janitor, Ma’am. He just took out two of my guys with CQC (Close Quarters Combat) moves. He’s armed and he’s heading for the boiler room!”

“The boiler room?” Luna’s eyes went wide. “The gas main is in there.”

She looked at me, then at her team.

“Evacuate the building. Now! Pull the fire alarm!”

She drew her weapon and started running toward the basement stairs.

“Sam, get out of here! Run!”

I didn’t have to be told twice. I turned and ran for the exit.

But as I burst through the double doors into the fresh air, the ground beneath my feet shook.

Chapter 7: The Janitor’s Secret

The ground shook, but the school didn’t explode.

A plume of thick, black smoke erupted from the side of the building, right near the football field. It wasn’t the boiler room destroying the school; it was a shaped breach charge.

Russo wasn’t trying to kill us. He was making an exit.

I had stumbled onto the grass, coughing, my heart hammering a million miles an hour. Students were screaming, streaming out of the front doors like ants from a kicked hill. Teachers were shouting instructions that nobody heard.

I looked toward the smoke.

Through the haze, a figure sprinted across the track. It was Mr. Russo. But the man who used to limp while pushing a mop bucket was moving with the speed of an Olympic sprinter. He wore a gas mask and carried a tactical submachine gun.

He was heading for the treeline behind the bleachers. If he made it to the woods, he was gone. He’d disappear into the suburbs.

“Freeze!”

The voice cut through the chaos.

Luna burst through the smoke hole in the wall. She was covered in gray dust, bleeding from a cut above her eyebrow. She didn’t look human anymore. She looked like a predator.

Russo turned. He didn’t hesitate. He raised the weapon.

I dove behind a concrete planter just as the pop-pop-pop of suppressed gunfire chewed up the turf where I had been standing.

Luna didn’t stop. She dove into a forward roll, coming up in a kneeling position, her sidearm leveled.

Bang. Bang.

Two shots. controlled. Precise.

Russo stumbled. His gun clattered to the track. One shot had hit his shoulder; the other had shattered his knee.

He fell screaming onto the red rubber of the running track.

Luna was on him in a second. She kicked the weapon away and planted a boot on his good shoulder, pinning him to the ground.

“It’s over, ‘Russo’,” she yelled, her gun trained on his face. “Asset is secured. You failed.”

Russo ripped his mask off. His face was twisted in pain and hate. “You think this stops us? There are more chips. There are more schools.”

“Maybe,” Luna said, breathing hard. “But not today. And not in my district.”

Dozens of agents swarmed the field, weapons drawn. They surrounded Russo.

Luna stepped back, holstering her weapon. She wiped the blood from her forehead with her sleeve. She looked exhausted.

She looked up and scanned the perimeter. She saw me peeking out from behind the planter.

She didn’t yell at me to get back. She just shook her head, a small, tired smirk playing on her lips. She held up two fingers. V for Victory. Or maybe P for Peace.

Then the SWAT team wall swallowed her up.

Chapter 8: The Ghost in the Hoodie

We didn’t have school for a week.

When we came back, things were different. The yellow tape was gone, but the vibe had changed forever.

Braden Miller was gone. The rumor mill was on fire. Some said he was in a juvenile detention center. Others said he was in federal prison. The news just said he was “assisting authorities with an ongoing investigation.” His locker was empty. His picture in the trophy case had been quietly removed.

The “cool table” wasn’t cool anymore. Without their leader, the football players were just guys in jackets. The hierarchy had collapsed.

And Luna?

She never came back to class. Obviously.

Her desk in English class sat empty for three days until the janitor—a new one, a nice lady named Martha—took it away.

It was like she had never existed. No yearbook photo. No social media. Just a ghost who wore a hoodie and saved the school.

I was sitting in the cafeteria, back at my usual table. I had my lukewarm Dr. Pepper. I was watching the room.

The principal walked in. He looked ten years older. He made a beeline for my table.

The cafeteria went silent again. Everyone watched. Was I in trouble? Was I the new suspect?

Principal Higgins stopped at my table. He placed a small, white envelope on the table.

“Someone left this for you,” he said stiffly. “Said it was for ‘Civics Extra Credit’.”

He walked away.

My hands shook as I opened it.

Inside was a single object and a note.

The object was a challenge coin. It was heavy, gold and black. On one side, the Department of Justice seal. On the other, the US Marshal star.

The note was handwritten on a piece of notebook paper.

“To Sam,

Most people listen, but they don’t hear. Most people look, but they don’t see.

Keep your eyes open. The world needs more people who pay attention to the quiet ones.

P.S. I fixed your grade. You got an A.

– E.”

I rubbed my thumb over the cold metal of the coin.

I looked across the cafeteria. I saw a kid sitting alone in the corner. He was wearing a baggy sweater, head down, reading a comic book. Ignored. Invisible.

I picked up my tray.

I walked across the room. The football players watched me. The cheerleaders watched me. I didn’t care.

I pulled out the chair across from the lonely kid.

“Hey,” I said. “Is this seat taken?”

The kid looked up, surprised. “Uh, no.”

“Cool,” I said, sitting down. “I’m Sam.”

Because if there’s one thing I learned from the girl who wasn’t really deaf, it’s that you never know who you’re sitting next to. And sometimes, the quietest people have the loudest stories to tell.

THE END.