Ben waits with Griffin at the bus stop the first day that Griffin must attend the JFK alternative school. Ben muses, “I never thought one of us would have to go there. Alcatraz, maybe, but not JFK” (57). At JFK, Griffin finds out he is “the youngest, and the smallest, and the weakest” (60); however, the school is like a police state with teachers all watching for trouble. Griffin realizes he’s much farther along than all the other students academically and that he will learn nothing so long as he is at JFK. He is terribly bored from the beginning.

Griffin begins to outline Operation Justice, the purpose of which is to find out who framed him for the theft of the ring. Someone rips away the paper he is working on, turns it into a paper airplane, and sails it across the room. Soon he finds out that the person who took the paper and read it is Shank, whose real name is Sheldon Brickhaus. Shank is an eighth-grade boy who is shorter than Griffin but extremely strong and thick. He tells Griffin that they are going to be friends.

That evening, Griffin’s posse comes to his house and he tells them about Operation Justice.