“Why would you do that?” we asked him. “If you wanted a different lens or a different camera, why wouldn’t you ask us?”

He said he wanted his movie to be a surprise. He wanted to be independent. He thought no one would trust him after what happened in Virginia. And all those things seemed reasonable. Heartbreakingly reasonable conclusions for a young boy to come to.

Dr. Adams said it was important to have consequences, but at this point I still believed it was wrong, completely wrong, to take the camera away. I thought it would only make him do something more desperate in order to have it. I understood how important it was to him to have it—to be able to control his environment more, to frame what he saw and what he looked at again. I felt I understood him.

The consequences we gave him had to do with the car. No more driving the Austin to school, and David was putting the new car—the one they were planning to work on together next—on hold. He wouldn’t have it shipped until things settled down.

“What do you mean by settled down?” Graham shouted at us. “You take everything from me. First I can’t see Eric, then I can’t watch my own movies, now I can’t put things on my wish list or drive my own car. And you won’t let me work on the new one you promised me. What am I supposed to do?”

David remained calm and loving, as he always does in these situations. “Well,” he said, “it seems like you’ve got a nice group of friends here, and you’re lucky to have folks right next door. Maybe you could spend more time with them. You know, when I was your age, I didn’t have a car.”

Graham groaned and rolled his eyes. “I know. I know. You’ve told me. I know. But I thought that’s one of the reasons you wanted me to have one.”

David told him he was sorry, but it wasn’t negotiable.

I remember thinking this would all blow over. I remember thinking this was just a stage he was going through and that eventually he would realize we were right. I remember thinking that once he became more a part of high school and his friends, he’d be more reasonable about these things. I remember thinking a lot of things that fall, and looking back now, none of our ideas would have made any goddamn difference.

I was meditating in my backyard. A lot had happened that week, and I was trying to practice having a blank mind so later I could use my powers of concentration to get some work done. Tate and I had been skipping school a lot before all that stuff with Brian happened, and I realized once things had settled down that I was probably not going to be valedictorian. She was. Which was fine and all, but I thought maybe we could get our GPAs so that they were identical. Maybe it could be both of us. Anyway. I was out there relaxing by the fishpond, sitting on a stone slab and trying to naturally expand my consciousness, and when I opened my eyes, Graham Copeland was standing right in front of me with a camera.

I blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t an apparition of some kind. Then I laughed and said, “What’s up, G?”

He said, “I’m just out roaming the neighborhood.”

“Dude,” I said. “How are things going? How does it feel to be a hero?”

“Good,” he said. “It feels good to be a hero. I think it’s good publicity for my career as a filmmaker.”

“Well, there you go,” I said. “Hey, can you turn that camera off? We’re just having a conversation. I don’t think it needs to be documented.”

“Oh,” he said, looking startled. “Yeah, sure.” He turned it off and slid it into his pocket.

“So, how are things?” I asked again. He looked a little weird, and I wanted him to relax.

“I was wondering about Tate,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Are you in love with her?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“Are you asking if I own Tate?”

“No, it’s just when you guys came over the other night, she seemed so caught up in everything about you and impressed with you.”

“Huh. I dunno, man. Tate gets caught up in a lot of things.”

He nodded. “How long have you guys been together?”

“Been friends?” I asked. “Since elementary school.”

“What about Becky?”

“What about her?”

“Are you the same kind of friend with Becky?”

“No. Dude, are you interested in dating Tate?”

“I . . . yeah, well, we . . .”

“Look, man, I don’t care what extracurricular things Tate might do. She’s her own person, got it? And you’re my friend. Okay? Everything is cool.”

He looked really embarrassed. “Okay, but don’t you think she’s . . . I mean, that family is kinda . . .”

“Interesting? Very. That’s why I’m not about to get all freaked-out by teen romance nonsense. Okay? Tate and I are going to go to college together. We have some plans. I know you have your own plans, and that’s cool. We all have our own plans. We’re all alone when you get right down to it, right?”

“Yeah.”

“C’mon, dude, let’s go inside, I want to show you this website that’s all about fractals.”

I got up and stretched and we walked toward the house. It was okay spending time with him. He was still Art Dullard, but he was kind of okay. And I knew that Tate loved me and that we were getting the hell out of Rockland and that someday we’d talk about knowing Graham Copeland, someday he’d probably be famous. You could kinda see it just by looking at him.

It had been a week since I’d been called down to the office and it felt kinda weird. Up until now there was only one day when I was almost not called down to the office. Fitzgerald did the announcements and then some dipshit Richards-wannabe got on and started calling names. It’s generally the usual suspects, with a few kids who you’ve never heard of thrown in. That day they got through the whole list without saying the word Tate. Everyone in homeroom looked at me and then Trombley, my homeroom teacher, came over and patted me on the back and everyone clapped. About a minute later Fitzgerald got on the speaker and said, almost like he got how funny it was: “And last but not least, Ms. Tate.”

But that was last year. School had only just started a month ago and for the first few weeks I’d had uninterrupted call-downs. You know how they go. “Don’t skate in the hall. Did you call Letorno a fat ass? Smoking on school grounds? Who did that graffiti out by the north entrance? Mr. Blah blah blah says you’ve got an attitude whatever.” But lately I guess they stopped watching every little thing I did, because the days went by and I didn’t have to visit with Richards or Mr. Fitz.

Anyway, this might sound weird but I missed seeing Richards, so I took myself to the office. She was wearing a pair of thick black-framed glasses and a black blouse with polka dots and a wide silver bracelet and her hair was up on her head in a bun with a pencil poked through it.

She smiled when I walked in. “What’s up, homegirl?”

“Just checking on you,” I said.

I’d been away from the office so long the jar of black licorice was gone and she actually had some candy that looked good on her desk—some kind of square gummy stuff covered with sugar. She held out the dish and offered me one and I popped it in my mouth.

Big mistake. “Oh my God, what is wrong with you?!” I said, wincing, and spit it into my hand. My whole mouth was burning. “What is that flavor? Cleaning solvent?”

She laughed and took two of the gross torture candies and started chewing them. “It’s crystallized ginger,” she said.

“Are you sure you’re supposed to eat it?”

She nodded and ate another one.

“Why can’t you just have a jar of M&M’s on your desk like a normal authority figure?”