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  “Well, your son Farrell is…”

  “White?” Mom said. “Yep, he’s real white. So are my other two kids. White like the cast of High School Musical. Except for that black girl, of course. But no one remembers her.”

  The woman straightened out her Tory Burch tunic and tried to regain her composure. “Well, okay then,” she said. “I’m here to welcome you to the neighborhood. I’m Julie Davies. My son, Andre, is on the basketball team at Lexham with your son, Farrell.”

  Mom stiffened. If it was possible for her to look any more intimidating she had found a way. “Oh, I’ve heard about Andre…”

  Back in the living room, Rom continued to put out the pieces of the board game. It was such a contrast, the colorful, retro Candyland board on top of the expensive and modern glass table in the expensive and modern glass house. It wasn’t right and Farrell knew it. They weren’t following the rules they had made up themselves. They were…sticking out. They were conspicuous. The house. The car. The Mom.

  The Mom returned to the room and sat down, legs crisscrossed, on the expensive fluffy white rug surrounding the table.

  “You’ll be yellow, Mom,” Rom said as he placed a yellow gingerbread man game piece on the board.

  She softened and smiled. “I love yellow, Rommie. Thank you. My favorite color from my favorite child.”

  Farrell shook his head as Rom beamed. “Who was it?” he asked.

  “That was Julie Davies,” Mom informed him. “She’s our new neighbor and the mother of your good friend, Andre. She came by so we could arrange a play date for the two of you. I thought you all could go to the zoo together on Saturday.”

  “You’re kidding?” Farrell asked, truly dismayed at the very thought of it.

  “Of course, I am,” Mom said. “I told little Miss Suburban Nightmare to get the hell off my porch or I was going to kick her botoxed butt back to whatever cookie cutter McMansion she crawled out of.”

  “You’re kidding?” Farrell asked again.

  “No, I am not,” Mom said. “You may not be my favorite son, Farrell, but you are still my son and I’m not going to be nice to any sorry woman who gave birth to any sorry boy that’s treating you wrong. Now, it’s game night. Pick a card already!”

  * * *

  The members of the varsity basketball team held their practice in the Lexham gym. They were split into two teams competing against each other in a friendly game that was anything but. Elbows were shoved into faces, players were slamming their bodies up against each other, and eyes were being poked. They may have all been on the same team when they played against another school but here it was every man for himself.

  The man who seemed most in it for himself was Andre Davies. He wasn’t just the captain of the team; he seemed to be the only player too. If anyone else had the ball it was an unwritten rule that they would pass it to Andre. If anyone else was open to take a shot it was an unwritten rule that Andre wouldn’t pass it to them. He would take the shot himself.

  Farrell was amused as ran up and down the court. He was a member of the Lexham Preparatory Academy’s varsity basketball team and he had never played basketball. Not once. Not even a pick up game on a playground. He had watched it on television a couple of times but hadn’t thought much of it. Bouncing a ball and throwing it through a hoop? Surely there were better things to do with your time.

  He was already studying the game though. Farrell was a quick study. He never for a second thought there was something someone else could do that he couldn’t do better.

  Coach Gwynn was yelling at the boys as he paced along the edges of the court. “Pick up the pace!” “Guard him!” “Move it!” Everyone else was sweating. Their hearts were racing, but not Farrell’s. He was used to running. He had to run a lot and he hated it. He hated running because, unlike most people, he didn’t run for exercise --- he was usually running for his life.

  Farrell looked up into the bleachers that lined either side of the gymnasium and saw Nora Evans sitting there. She was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her head resting in her hands. She watched the action on the court with a complete lack of enthusiasm.

  For some reason that he would never have been able to explain to Izzy and Rom, Farrell felt the need to do something to get Nora’s attention. He wanted her to notice him. He had never wanted to be noticed before. He had never cared what anyone thought, especially what any girl thought, but now, standing on the court as practice swirled around him, he had to stand out.

  The other players were stampeding towards him, headed for the basket, passing the ball back and forth across the court and setting up the perfect scenario for Andre Davies to get the two points he believed to be his by right of birth. The unwritten rules again. Pass to Andre. Let Andre score. Make Andre happy.

  But Farrell, of course, hadn’t read the unwritten rules. He had rules of his own and none of them involved doing what Andre wanted. As the players ran by him one turned and passed the ball towards Andre, but Farrell stepped in and grabbed it out of mid air. He began dribbling back across the court towards his team’s goal. This was all easy enough. Bounce the ball and shoot it through the basket. Anyone could do that.

  Farrell was almost to the basket and about to shoot when Andre came full force across the court and slammed into him. The ball flew out of Farrell’s hands and Farrell hit the ground and slid five feet on his backside before his head bounced off the hardwood floor.

  A whistle blew. “Okay, let’s pack it in!” Coach Gwynn yelled. “Davies. See me!”

  Another player handed Andre the ball and he stood with it over Farrell. “My ball,” he said. Then he reluctantly joined the coach for a lecture as the other players left the court.

  Farrell sat up and looked around. Nora Evans was still in the bleachers. She was looking at him but not with any interest or disinterest. No expression at all. In fact, she seemed to be working hard to look like she didn’t care.

  He couldn’t help himself. Farrell was an inquisitive kind of guy and this girl was a mystery to him. He found himself climbing the stairs of the bleachers before he even knew he was doing it and sat down next to Nora.

  “Hey,” he finally said.

  “Hey.”

  Farrell put his hand out for her to shake. “I’m Farrell Halifax.”

  Nora didn’t shake his hand. She looked away for a moment, pretending not to care that someone had just sat down next to her, and then looked back at Farrell. “You’re new,” she finally said.

  “So do you have a name?” Farrell asked after another uncomfortable moment of silence.

  “I do,” Nora said, but said no more.

  “Actually, you don’t need to tell me your name. I already know it. Nora Eleanor Evans.”

  That got Nora’s attention. “Am I the only girl you’re stalking or am I just lucky?”

  “I know your name because we’re in the same history class,” Farrell said.

  Nora looked down on the court where Coach Gwynn was yelling at Andre. He looked back at her and saw her sitting there with another boy. He clenched his fists and tried not to lash out at the coach when he really wanted to lash out at Farrell. The smallest of smiles crossed Nora’s lips. She obviously found it amusing that Andre looked so exceedingly unhappy at the sight of her sitting with Farrell.

  “Listen, it’s been great but I have to go,” she said to Farrell, even though her body language and the fact that she was leaning in closer to Farrell was saying something entirely different to Andre. She got up and headed down the bleachers. She turned back to Farrell. “Nice to talk to you…or whatever.”

  Farrell was smarter than this but not on this day. He had never played basketball before and had never played this game either. Farrell was used to travelling in straight lines. Nora Evans had caused him to swerve.

  * * *

  Farrell had barely stepped three feet out of the gym before two of the varsity players grabbed him by the arms and dragged him down the hallway.

 
“Somehow you seem to have the idea that you’re one of us,” said the larger of the two boys, Jon Roberts, a point guard for the team who spent more time gelling his hair than practicing his free throws. “Somehow you seem to think you can do whatever you want. You, my friend, are sorely mistaken.”

  The two hulking players lifted up the much lighter Farrell and deposited him, butt first, into a large grey trashcan at the end of the hall. Farrell looked up from his new position among half eaten sandwiches, soda cans, and dirty jock straps to see Andre now looking down on him.

  “Listen, Mexican dude,” Andre said, once again confusing Uruguay with some other place he probably didn’t know the location of. “I can’t do anything about you being on my team, but I can do a lot about you talking to my girlfriend.” His girlfriend. Of course. Captain Andre Davies, big man on campus, was genetically programmed to date Nora Evans, cheerleader. How had Farrell missed that? “If I ever catch you even glancing at her again I’ll slam dunk your ass --- permanently. Got it?”

  Farrell didn’t even struggle to get out of the trashcan. They would have just stuffed him back in again. He knew better than to get into fights he couldn’t win. He wasn’t prepared. You always have to be prepared. “Whatever you say, Chief,” Farrell told Andre.

  Andre poured the contents of a Mountain Dew on Farrell and he and his laughing henchman left the hallway and Farrell behind and headed for the locker room. This girl, this Nora Evans, had distracted Farrell. He hadn’t thought this one through and that really bugged him. At the same time, though, he liked the distraction that was Nora Evans even as he sat in a large trashcan covered in muck. There were still many questions to be answered but Farrell now knew one important fact. Andre Davies wasn’t a problem anymore now that Farrell knew that Andre Davies could be a problem.

  * * *

  In the boy’s locker room, the last few members of the basketball team finished changing into their school uniforms and headed off to class. Andre ran a comb through his hair and admired himself in the small mirror attached to the inside of his gym locker. He turned to the only other player left, Jon Roberts, his right hand man.

  “How do I look?” he asked as he stood before his teammate.

  “I don’t know,” Jon replied. “You look alright.”

  “Do you think I’m losing my hair?”

  Jon was adjusting his school tie and pulled it a little too tightly around his neck, slightly put off by Andre’s unexpected line of questioning. “Dude, I don’t look at your hair,” he finally said. “I don’t care about your hair.”

  “I’m better looking than him,” Andre said, more to himself than to Jon.

  “Better looking than who?” Jon stared at his team captain, a look of alarm on his face, like he was looking at a crazy person. “Who are you better looking than?”

  Andre didn’t meet Jon’s stare. He was momentarily lost in his own thoughts, however shallow they may have been. He finally snapped out of it and turned away from the mirror in his locker, and slammed the locker shut. “Better looking than everyone, dude,” he said lightheartedly. He slapped Jon hard on the back and strutted off to class.

  Andre made it halfway down the hall before he stopped and felt around his neck. He wasn’t wearing his school tie. It seemed for a moment that he might just let it go and run the gauntlet, hoping no one would notice and he could get away without a uniform infraction. Instead he turned around and jogged back down the hall.

  “Dude, you let me forget my tie,” Andre said as he entered the locker room. It was empty, however. Jon Roberts, who had been there only a moment before, was nowhere to be seen.

  “Roberts?” Andre asked as he stepped over Jon’s backpack full of schoolbooks and headed for his locker. There was no answer in return. Andre shrugged it off and grabbed a tie from his locker. He began fixing the tie around his collar as he hurried out of the locker room, slamming the door behind him as he left. As the door slammed, however, Jon Roberts’s locker popped open --- and Jon Roberts popped out! His body fell to the ground, his eyes glassy and lifeless and blood dripping from his ears.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Rom saw the entire world in numbers. In his head, when he imagined Farrell, he imagined the number two. His mind’s eye imagined the number two to be flaming red and much larger and more imposing than the icy blue number one. The number six, which is what he thought of when he looked at Izzy, was red and white like a candy cane and quite small. It was quite small but very bright. Rom thought of himself as the number 835. It was a purplish color and the three was like a balloon floating between the other two numbers.

  Every number had its own particular look and every thing looked like a number. Numbers were certain. They gave value to things. The Sun was approximately 92,957,000 miles from the Earth. At the equator, the Earth spun at 1038 miles per hour and, most importantly, a king-sized bag of peanut M&M’s weighed 3.27 ounces. Fact! Rom, himself, measured five foot, three inches tall. He weighed one hundred and five pounds. He was thirteen years old. He was numerically certain.

  Rom knew when numbers were correct and he knew when they were incorrect, when something didn’t add up, and the mathematical figures scrawled on the dry erase board at the front of Mrs. O’Brien’s empty classroom most definitely didn’t add up.

  “Incorrect. Incorrect. Wrong in every way,” Rom said as he erased old numbers and put in numbers of his own. “She must be senile. That is the only explanation.”

  He stepped back from the board and found Mrs. O’Brien now standing next to him, her arms crossed. As good as Rom was with numbers, though, was inversely matched by how bad he was with reading emotions. Rom had no idea Mrs. O’Brien was displeased with him despite the scowl on her face.

  Rom stepped back up to the board and looked at the numbers again. “Was that a three or a four you had here?” he asked her. She didn’t answer. “I’ll just say it was a four. It doesn’t really matter. They’re both incorrect. They’re wrong, Mrs. O’Brien. Do…you…understand?” He said the last part like he was speaking to a five year old.

  Mrs. O’Brien wasn’t moved by his condensation. She held out her hand. Rom stared at it for a long moment. Then he finally got it. He handed over the marker he was holding and backed away. He had crossed some line that he never understood but had crossed it enough to know it when he did.

  Rom quickly retreated from the room and entered into the stream of kids leaving campus for the day. They headed for the buses out front or the car pool line to the side of the school or out back to the student parking lot. That’s where Rom found Farrell and Izzy not so patiently waiting for him.

  “Four years, eight months, six hours and one day,” Rom declared as he joined them. “That’s when my math teacher, Mrs. O’Brien, is going to die. It’ll be heart attack. Unfortunately I’ll have graduated by then.”

  “You won’t have graduated by then because we’re not really here to go to school, Rom,” Izzy told him as the three began to wind their way around the cars in the lot and towards their light blue Citroen.

  “Not to mention the fact that you said you wouldn’t do any more age analysis on people,” Farrell chastised his younger brother.

  “It’s a total invasion of privacy,” Izzy added. “The date someone is going to die is their business, not yours.”

  “But her class is so boring,” Rom whined. “Calculating cell division is the only interesting thing I have to do.”

  Farrell, ever the gentleman, opened the passenger side door of the Citroen for Izzy as Rom stood impatiently next to her waiting for Farrell to open the back door for him. Farrell instead brushed by him and headed around the car to the driver’s side. Rom finally gave up waiting and slid into the back seat, throwing his backpack in before him.

  The car started up with a sputter, the engine attempting to crank a few times before it actually roared to life. Its old metal parts grinded away and it made a racket new cars didn’t make. Farrell began to pull out of his parking space but only made it hal
f way into the lane in the lot when a loud honk drowned out even the very loud Citroen engine. It was Andre Davies driving a car that was stopped mere feet from Farrell’s bumper. He was at the wheel of a ridiculously expensive BMW convertible and had his ridiculously expensive looking girlfriend, Nora Evans, beside him.

  “Nice car, loser,” Andre yelled through Izzy’s open window at Farrell. “Is that what they drive back in Africa?” Nora just sat looking straight ahead. It was hard to tell whether she was embarrassed or bored.

  “Actually, we fly space ships where I come from,” Farrell shot back, which prompted a hard punch to the leg from Izzy. “As if he’d understand,” Farrell whispered to her.

  “Whatever, dude,” Andre said and he put his car in gear. His car tires squealed as he peeled out of the parking lot, blonde hair, his and Nora’s, blowing back in the wind.

  Rom sat slumped in the back seat. “We should get a nicer car.”

  Farrell looked back at Rom disapprovingly and put on his best older brother voice. “Don’t give in to peer pressure, Rom. Nothing good can come of it.”

  The Citroen was finally on its way and the Halifax siblings drove off through the chaos of the student parking lot and headed for the exit. As they drove away, however, they were being watched with more than the normal level of curiosity afforded new kids in a weird car. They were being watched with abnormal concentration by the most menacing boy at Lexham. It was Bobby Ramirez. He didn’t smile or even flinch. He stared with a burning and unsettling intensity at the Halifax siblings as the Citroen turned a corner and drove out of sight.

  * * *

  The streets of the Valley were laid out in a grid of horizontal and vertical lines easily seen in the nighttime from the hills above as rows of streetlights crisscrossing the Valley floor. The major streets were brighter, illuminated by lights from shops and cars and the strongest street lamps. The smaller streets faded in and out behind the cover of trees. It was a beautiful place at night. It was a shimmering, moving, vibrant map of light. The lights of the city, however, weren’t the lights Farrell was looking at.