Academic Assassins by Clay McLeod Chapman

session. We’re talking pass-fail here. Life or death. You want to survive this
place? Find your people. Find your tribe. Membership is mandatory.”
    I have a hazy memory of Greenfield Middle hosting an After-School Club Fair. Over twenty clubs set up their booths throughout the cafeteria—the French Club, Model United Nations, the
Eco-Warriors—each organization enlisting new recruits. I ambled from booth to booth, checking out the poster board banners in search of an extracurricular life.
    This was so seventh grade.
    Time for a little breakdown of what each tribe has to offer:
    THE SHE-WOLVES
    MEMBERS: 20
    MODUS OPERANDI:
    Sully and her comrades from Camp New Leaf had developed their own tribe over the summer. After the original Tribe had been disbanded, Sully rebuilt her new crew around the ideals
that mattered most to her—
    Sisterhood. Solidarity. Self-Reliance.
    The She-Wolves were the first tribe at Kesey. Girls only.
    The She-Wolves worked in the shadows rather than under the watchful eye of Merridew. When the lights go out and the Men in White hide behind locked doors, Sully and her
She-Wolves were in charge. She had become the de facto kingpin of Kesey, a godfather—sorry, godmother—of the entire tribal syndicate. Even though she conferred with the leaders of the
other tribes, she had final say. Go against her and you got slingshotted.
    DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
    Slingshots. No sense of humor whatsoever.
    MOTTO: “The Wolves come out at night.”
    I pushed through the crowd toward Sully. I was only two steps from her washing machine throne when one of her towering She-Wolves cut me off.
    â€œStep back,” the wolf cub said, her hand pressed against my chest.
    â€œBut I want to make an informed choice, you know? Interview as many candidates as possible before making a decision. Selecting a new tribe isn’t easy.”
    â€œBetter look somewhere else,
newbie….
”
    I looked over her shoulder at Sully. “What?” I asked. “I can’t join your tribe?”
    Sully tried to hide her smirk. “You don’t meet our criteria. No boys allowed.”
    So far, I was off to a swimming start.
    THE ORPHANS
    MEMBERS: 34
    MODUS OPERANDI:
    The Orphans were the purest product of the juvenile corrections system. True Charles Dickens-style. They had nowhere else to go, no one to look after
them .… “Love” wasn’t a word that came their way that often, if ever.
    The Orphans’ numbers were larger than any other tribe. They were shuttled through the system. They had nowhere else to go. If they were ever released from Kesey, it would
only be a matter of weeks—sometimes days—before they returned. Though they were defiant toward adults, they held a fierce loyalty to one another, believing nobody else would take care
of them.
    DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
    Sleepless eyes. Bruised and sometimes broken-nosed, but they take a licking and keep on ticking. The homemade zero tattooed within the joint between the thumb and index finger on
their left hand.
    MOTTO: “Mama didn’t love us enough.”
    That scrawny kid who Buttercup had mopped the floor up with definitely didn’t look like leadership material to me. There was hardly any meat clinging to his bones. His lower lip drooped.
Too many bullies must’ve yanked on it over the years. The bags under his deep-set eyes indicated sleep wasn’t something that came often.
    â€œNobody else take you in yet?” he asked me.
    â€œLooking that way.”
    â€œYou’ve come to the right place.” He reached his hand out for me to shake, exposing the zero etched into the stretch of skin. “Call me Table Scrap.”
    I took his hand. “Table Scrap?”
    â€œThat’s the name this place gave me. Once punks like Buttercup are done with me, that’s all that’s left. Figured I’d keep it, just to remember I’m