Free We Dine With Cannibals by C. Alexander London Page A

custodian’s closet until the end of the day.”
    â€œBut she’s poisonous,” Oliver explained. “She only trusts me.”
    â€œI take fine care.
Heloderma horridum
is fine lizard, is no problem,” Mr. Rondon said.
    â€œI’m not worried about Beverly,” Oliver said, crossing his arms. “It’s you I’m worried about. I don’t even like lizards.”
    â€œ
Scientia potentia est.
” Mr. Rondon smiled. Hehad a thick accent in English, but he seemed to speak Latin effortlessly. “It mean ‘knowledge is power.’ You must know your lizards. Is no problem.”
    â€œDon’t worry about Mr. Rondon,” Principal Deaver said, looking at the custodian suspiciously. “He seems to know his lizards.”
    Oliver and Celia turned to see that he was smiling.
    â€œYou may pick your lizard up from him at the end of the day. I do not suggest you bring it back to school tomorrow,” said Principal Deaver, and dismissed the children. Mr. Rondon winked at them as they left the room. The dark curls of ink on his neck bulged as he gave them a reassuring nod.
    â€œThanks for the quick thinking,” Oliver whispered to Celia as they made their way down the empty hallway.
    â€œWhat are older sisters for?” Celia answered.
    â€œBut we’re twins!”
    When they returned to their classroom, Oliver and Celia were met by angry stares. The only smiles in the room came from Corey Brandt’s picture on the girls’ notebooks. There were now twoopen seats in the front of the room and the seats had a wide space around them, like a moat.
    Mr. McNulty had a small bandage on his forehead. He eyed the twins nervously.
    â€œCome in and take your seats,” he said without any of the friendliness he’d shown that morning. Oliver glanced over at Greg Angstura, who pulled his chair farther away.
    â€œSorry,” Oliver mouthed.
    â€œYou’re dead at recess,” Greg hissed back.
    No one talked to Oliver and Celia for the rest of the morning, although they talked about Oliver and Celia behind their backs the entire time.
    â€œFreaks,” whispered Annie Hurwitz.
    â€œWeirdos,” said Stephanie Sabol.
    â€œLizard people,” said just about everyone.
    That one stung Oliver particularly hard. It wasn’t even
his
lizard!
    Finally, recess came, and the twins hoped to be left alone to mind their own business.
    â€œSixth-grade recess,” Mr. McNulty explained to the class as they lined up to go outside, “is a time to reinforce socialization and cultivate interpersonal relationship skills.”
    The class stared back at him, dumbfounded.
    â€œSixth-grade recess is structured play,” he explained, and led the class down the hall toward the double doors that led to the playground.
    â€œWhat’s structured play?” Oliver asked his sister as they followed the line outside.
    â€œI think it means Mr. McNulty tells us what to do.”
    â€œSo it’s just like class, only outside?”
    â€œOh no,” Celia said, squinting out at the blacktop in the glaring sunlight. “It’s going to be much worse.”

13
WE WOULD RATHER FACE LIONS

    WHEN A YOUNG BOY reaches maturity, the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert send him into the dry savannah on his first antelope hunt. He faces hunger and thirst, and while he hunts for antelope, a pride of lions might be hunting him. Young men of the Satere-Mawe people in Brazil wear gloves filled with bullet ants, and must dance for ten minutes while the ants inflict their hands with hundreds of painful bites.
    These are rites of passage that signal a transition from childhood into adulthood, and cultures all over the world have different ones. Some of them seem brutal and violent to outsiders. Some of them are hard to understand.
    Middle school has its own rites of passage. Themost brutal, violent, and hard to understand of these is called