I looked in disbelief at the kid who’d just snatched my backpack. I’d known him since fi rst grade, and he’d earned his reputation as a cocky prankster. We were 13 now. But we were friends, classmates… Scholars’ Bowl teammates, for Pete’s sake. Th is was a joke, surely. “Say it! Or your backpack’s going in the highway.” He mock-threw it toward the 5 p.m. traffi c in front of our high school, and I lunged for it, grabbing a strap. We wrestled over the $10 Wal-Mart bag for a few moments before he begrudgingly released it.