. . .

Tom looks up.

“I was insecure,” he says. “Because I had lost myself. I was shy and meek and human, and it shone from me. The bullies said, ‘look, there! That boy is human. He doesn’t have even the tiniest bit of parasitic serpent DNA. I bet the scrolls of Lemuria don’t even talk about him! Let’s beat him up, because we can!’”

This statement is not accurate. Tom is dramatizing the speech of the bullies for effect.

“But now,” says Tom, “they do not. First I became too uncool even to bully — not just human, but less than human. They became afraid to beat up stinking Tom in his stinking dead hats, lest something of my shame rub off. Now I have risen in their estimation; they see this hat and an occult tremor shivers through them: they fear to trouble me, and make haste to clear my path. I have lost nothing and gained much, Mr. Loggins; wherefore should you be concerned?”

Mr. Loggins is listening to the sound of the words and not the substance.

He asks with some concern: “Are you being bullied, Thomas?”

Tom gives him a withering look.

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