David was calm, he was indifferent, he was final, he was necessary, he was certain: this was the mix that the group felt but did not name, while they huddled behind each other and whispered their secrets.
The classroom had five rows of chairs, and the chairs held David and the group. David sat, unmoving, and bound his eyes to a book. A sudden noise from the group disturbed him. He glanced over, and saw that two large boys had pinned a weaker boy to his desk by his hair. The noise had been laughter - the sound of nineteen students laughing as one. David's face melted into an expression of pity until he saw that the coward was laughing along with them. He felt a shutter fall between himself and the others, an irresistible indifference, and he buried himself in his book again.
David wished he had a better word for the group than "cloud," because the droplets of a cloud can be told apart if you look closely enough. But there was no better word for his feeling toward them. He saw the smiles reflecting smiles, and the whispers of praise and contempt which only signified the presence or absence of the person being discussed. It was as if they were trying to slip from matter into motion to escape the responsibility of a definite form - as if they wished to be like so many ripples merging in a pond. David understood them, so he left them alone.
Something swept the book out of David's hand. He looked up. Five burly boys stood in front of him. He could not tell which of them had taken his book. He could have figured it out if any of them showed a sign of guilt, but they were acting in a group, and they had accepted the idea that guilt does not exist when one acts in a group. Two of the boys were laughing, and David noticed that the laughter went on long after anything funny was happening, as if the source of each boy's happiness was not the world but the opinion of the other boy. David watched them with the calm contempt only possible to a person certain of his own worth.
David turned his head to look into the eyes of the nearest brute. "What do you want?"
The boy blinked twice, like a person whose eyes are not used to daylight. His head twitched slightly, and he glanced at the other boys as if he wished that the "you" had been plural rather than singular. But they looked at the floor or threw forced smirks at David rather than meet the glance, so the boy answered. He spoke in starts and stops as if his mind had to be set back on the path of thought every so often, like a small child learning to walk in a straight line.
"Yeah, so none of us really know how to answer this question on the assignment, and we figured that since you're kind of, you know, good at school and stuff you could, maybe, do something there, or whatever."
"You want me to do your homework."
The boy did not answer.
"I won't - but. One of you stole my book. Keep it and read it. That is all I will say."
David could not tell which of them had the book when they walked back to the group. He did not know if they would actually read the book. He knew that people like them didn't read many books, so the odds were against him. But if they did.
One week later, when David was walking back to class after lunch, there was a pattern of sound he had not heard for years. It was like the sound he heard when he stood near a highway, and cars motored past him first in one direction, then the other. There was a word for this that he had forgotten - what was it called? He saw a small group huddled against a wall, and heard two voices meet one another to bounce rather than merge. Ah, yes, he was hearing an argument.