Adam saw it first. Neither one of us was expecting to find it, because our minds were too set on the task at hand: skipping out of school without getting caught. Now you have to understand something. Adam and I aren't necessarily good kids, but we definitely aren't bad, either (as much as Adam sometimes wants to convince other people that he is). Actually, we're just a couple of in-betweeners. We're the sort that kind of just fall between the cracks. We aren't good or bad enough to have a lot of attention paid to us. So in all honesty, we really weren't sure what would happen when we skipped. Would they notice we were gone? Would they do anything about it? Would they call my parents or Adam's mom? Who knew. We were interested to find out, and a little nervous also.

We sort of had a good reason to skip. Adam and I had walked to the gas station to get a couple of slurpees that we could eat on our way to school. Not really a healthy choice for breakfast, but we weren't thinking about vitamins or proteins. All we wanted was something cold and liquid. It was early June, and that meant not only that school was almost over, but also that we still had another week of pure, senseless torture to get through. Goldenrock Middle was not up on its technology; there wasn't a drop of air-conditioned atmosphere in it, which was why we sat through sweltering, muggy anguish from mid-May to early June, worrying more about whether we had sweat marks under our armpits in front of girls than what our homework for the day was. Adam and I figured that if we had something icy to cherish on the trek to Goldenrock, we just might make it through another day of classes.

So anyway, our plan to get slurpees didn't really go the way we wanted it to. The lady at the gas station accused Adam of trying to steal something (which he wasn't doing, of course) and decided to yell over to a cop who was parked at the pumps with a cup of something hot in his hands. Then in came the cop, all big and puffed up like he was real important—far too important to drink slurpees from an Amoco when the world had a Starbucks! And he pulled up his belt like he wanted to show off his gun and shifted his shoulders up and down. He looked long and hard at Adam, but not so long and hard at me. Then he chewed his words for a minute and finally said, "This young lady here tells me you boys have been up to some mischief."

Adam and I looked sideways at each other. Was he serious?

"She says you've been pocketing the potato chips."

Gazing down at his baggy, sagging jeans, Adam raised his eyebrows. I wished he'd just keep quiet, even though I knew it would be impossible for him. "No mischief here, sir," he smirked.

The cop looked half-convinced, then turned hard-faced again. "I want you to empty your pockets, son."

"I'm not your son. And don't you think you'd see big bulges in my pockets if there were bags of chips in them?" Adam went on, lifting his long black shirt to show how flat his pockets were.

"Empty them now, you little wisecracker! Don't argue with me."

Wiping some of his hair out of his eyes, Adam sighed noticeably but did as he was told. Onto the counter went fifty-one cents, a rubber band, two safety pins, a patch of the British flag, and a small pile of pocket lint. Nothing to get excited about.

The cop glanced at the stuff and sifted disgustedly through the lint. Then, as if trying to make the point that he was always right despite being wrong just this once, he said, "I'm sure you know what you were trying to pull. I'll have no more of that, you hear? Now clean this mess up and get out of here. Too early for a couple of kids to be wandering through gas stations, anyhow." Without a word, Adam put everything (including the loved lint) back into the depths of his pockets. He elbowed me slightly, and the two of us inched away from the cop and the station worker toward the door. Just as we were bolting out of the place, the cop called, "And get a haircut, kid! You look like a danmed girl!"

"Geez," I said to Adam as we exited. "Think he was kind of bitter?"

Adam laughed. I knew his feelings weren't hurt. He couldn't have cared less what anybody said about his hair. He loved his just about as much as I hated mine. So I didn't really expect him to say anything about the insult he'd just been thrown. Instead, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and began his cool, sauntering walk. He didn't call it that, but I did. Adam always broke into that walk when we neared school or when his pride had just been tested. We walked in silence for a couple of minutes, and then I took a big slurp of my drink and said, "Well, at least we got our slurpees," at which point, Adam froze and turned his mellow expression into an immediate frown.

"Oh shoot! I forgot mine!" he cried, really upset about it.

I knew what he was going to say next, but we honestly didn't have time for it. "Come on, Adam. Let's just keep going. You can have some of mine." I actually prayed that he would take me up on my offer and just do what I said (and I'm not the religious sort).

But he didn't.

"We've got to go back, Cole. I want it. I paid for it. It's cherry-coke flavor!"

"No way. Seriously. We'll be late if we go back now. We already got held up by that stupid cop. We can't be any later. Just forget about it."

I knew Adam, though. Once an idea was stuck in his head, he wouldn't—couldn't—let it slip off the hook. "We won't be late," he promised emptily. "We'll walk double-fast to school."

If he hadn't been so determined, I would've remarked how walking double-fast would make the whole idea of buying slurpees to cool us down entirely worthless. But at that point, it would've been useless to say. His mind was plastered to returning to the gas station, even though both of us knew that I was right about how we were going to be late. By the time we reached the station, checked to make sure the cop was gone, and went inside (Adam's slurpee was still sitting in a pool of moisture on the counter, which made me wonder a whole lot about the sanitation of the place), we had wasted a good fifteen minutes. Then we had to retrace our steps, so that when we were only halfway to school, the first bell was already ringing. We were going to be a good half-an-hour late.

I groaned. Like I said, I'm not a good student, but that didn't mean I wanted to walk in late. That would entail going to the office for a late pass, explaining my tardiness, walking into a room full of goggling peers, re-explaining my tardiness to the teacher, and possibly getting smacked with a lecture on lateness (my first hour English teacher was a pro at lectures, and he loved to show off). Anyhow, it was just too much work. Adam agreed. So we decided not to go to school at all.

There was this place behind Adam's house that was just a big, extensive field. It was messy and full of knee-high grass and weeds. We didn't live near big forests or anything, but this field ended in a good-sized cluster of twisted trees. When we were little, Adam and I used to play war games and capture the flag in that field with other kids. That was in elementary school. It was really neat because you could lay down in the grass and never be found until somebody stepped on you and you screamed from the shock. You could hide just about anywhere, and that made everything super fun when you were playing a game that involved locating a small square of fabric and then splitting into teams to dive into some sneaky warfare. Those were the days, back when the weeds came up to our waists. Now they were at our knees; we'd both grown since elementary school. Anyway, about the field: Adam and I decided that it would be the best place to hang out for the day. Goldenrock was a small town, and we didn't want to be seen playing games in the arcade or strolling down the street in broad daylight. It would be just plain dumb to take chances like that. So we decided to head into the field.

We didn't worry about Adam's mom seeing us. She worked during the day. Actually, she was always gone before Adam left the house. He had the job of locking up every morning, and then he'd come over to my place and we'd walk to school. Neither of us could wait until we had cars. Only a couple more years before we could drive. Not that the school was extremely far away—and not that either of our parents could afford great cars for us. Still, in our minds' eyes we saw ourselves sitting behind the wheels of some pretty nice vehicles.

But back to Adam's place. Like I said, his mom wouldn't be there, so we didn't have to worry. We went straight into his backyard and through the back door of his house. That way, no nosy neighbors would see him going inside. We got ourselves some provisions for the day and then left again, heading off into the grassy fields at the edge of town. It didn't seem smart to stay in Adam's house all day. He knew that his mom came home for lunch a lot of times. She had a pretty unpredictable schedule, and we knew not to take the chance on her walking in to find us lazing around the house when we should've been at school.

Off into our place of refuge we went. The tall grass made my legs itch all up and down, and I kept having to bend and scratch at my ankles and knees. Adam wasn't bothered by the weeds at all. That's because he always wore pants, even in the dead heat of months like July and August. He was crazy. I'd told him that several times, but he never really seemed to take notice. He had his own style, he said. His own "look," whatever that meant. I didn't think he looked any different than the other guys at school. The only difference between them and Adam was that they actually were noticed for their looks. Adam just . . . well . . . wasn't. Nobody paid him much attention besides myself, even with everything he did to try and fit himself in. So his wearing super big, low-hanging pants and black shirts with aliens and lame chalk-drawn phrases planted across them was, from my point of view, just plain painful.

I can't say I dressed particularly great. I wore what my parents paid for, and that seemed to suit me and everyone else well enough. Now don't think I'd be seen in sissy plaid shirts and pressed khakis or anything. Not me. I have to give my parents some credit; they're pretty decent when it comes to buying me things to wear. T-shirts and jeans—that'd be my look, if I had to label it. But I don't have to label it. I don't like labels.

"I'm getting the top of my ear pierced when I turn sixteen," remarked Adam suddenly, taking big steps to keep a good few feet ahead of me.

Getting a hoop up on his ear was something Adam had been complaining about for as long as I could remember—or at least ever since this kid named Eric got one in the sixth grade and became instant cool. Adam always whined to his mom about getting an earring after that, but she wouldn't hear anything of it. That was smart of her. I always wanted to tell Adam that it wasn't only an earring that made people like Eric. That kid also became a complete jerk overnight. That was why everyone liked him. I don't think I'll ever understand why people act like guys who are really jerks are actually too cool for us lower sorts. But who am I to try and understand the universe?

"I want a silver one, with some sort of weird design thing going up it. And I kind of like the ones with the balls on the ends so they don't fall out."

"Shut up," I sighed. "Your mom won't let you."

Adam scowled. I couldn't see it, but I felt it. He turned stubborn. "When I'm sixteen I can do whatever I want. She can't tell me what to do for the rest of my life. It's my ear, for crying out loud! She's just so old. She doesn't know how things are now. Should I be stuck back in the dark ages because that's when she grew up? I hate her!"

I let him blow off his steam. He had to do that a lot. I knew just as good as he did that he didn't hate his mom. And she wasn't old, really. She was a lot younger than my mom was.

"Besides. It would just go with my look."

See what I meant about him talking about his "look"? Was I the only person who knew that seventh graders didn't have their own look? Everybody wants to be different, right? At least, that's what they say. But they don't really want to be different different, they just want to be different. Because if they're different different, they won't be accepted. And everybody wants to fit in, even the ones that proclaim to the world that they don't. In fact, those are the ones who most want to be accepted, because they're trying so hard that their life blood is practically leaking out with their hair dye.

I wished I didn't care. With my freaky hair and eye coloring, I was totally different different. I wasn't just different (which would be good). Neither was Adam, but there was no getting him to admit that.

We kept on walking (and itching, in my case) until we came to that fringe of trees. Adam tossed his empty slurpee cup off to the side. I was about to do the same, but then I felt a guilt inside me and stuffed my cup into my backpack instead. It irritated me how Adam didn't have the same bit of conscience that I did.

The trees were copper beeches. They were real weird. Their trunks were thick and lumpy, bubbling over themselves to plant their roots deeper. Along the trunks, the branches of the trees were thin and scraggly, like limp arms. Once I saw a program about carnival side shows—the ones where people paid to go eat popcorn and stare at a bunch of freaks-of-nature, half of which weren't even real. Anyway, they showed pictures of this one guy who'd been born with five extra arms, except that none of them worked. He'd just mutated somehow and grown the arms around his chest and back, in a ring, sort of. They were scrawny and weak, like little bird legs. Entirely useless. That's what the branches of the copper beech trees made me think of. So I was glad they were covered with leaves.

Adam wanted to start climbing one of the trees. He tossed off his bag and got all excited, just like a little kid would. Suddenly, he didn't care about anything except getting up that tree. That's how I knew Adam wasn't as bad as he wanted himself to be. He just liked to put on a show for everyone, but I knew him better.

Up he climbed, getting real near the top. For as weak as those little bird-leg branches looked, they were pretty strong. Maybe it was just that Adam was real skinny, too. He didn't weigh a lot, I guessed. His outfit probably weighed more than he did. He yelled down for me to come on and start up after him, but I didn't really feel like climbing a tree at that moment. I was hot and sticky with sweat. I wanted a break from exertion, so I stayed on the ground. That was why Adam saw it first.

He had gotten as far as he could go. The copper beech wasn't a really tall tree; in fact, the one he was in was the biggest I'd seen before. When I looked up into the pinwheel of branches, I could see Adam's tennis-shoed feet dangling from somewhere up above. Everything was really quiet all of a sudden. Adam was up there trying to catch his breath, and I was still on the ground, wiping the perspiration off my forehead. I was silently wondering what exactly we were doing. I started to think of which class I'd be in if I was at school. Checking my watch, I realized it would only be second hour. German. I wondered if Frau O'Brien would miss me. She'd have to at least notice a table seat was empty. We had lab tables in the German room. Maybe Jessie Malloy, the girl with long brown hair who sat next to me at the table, would miss me. Probably not, I felt with some reluctance. She didn't even know my name. Once, we had to do a dialogue together, and she'd had to ask me my name to write it at the top of the paper. That was in April. She'd been sitting next to me since January.

"Cole!"

Hearing my name broke me from thinking about how people seem to forget it.

"Cole, you've got to see this! Come up here."

No. I didn't want to. "What is it? Just tell me. I'm not climbing that stupid tree."

As far up as Adam was, I could hear him sigh in frustration. I could be a big pain sometimes. I knew that. But things just came out of my mouth once in a while. They couldn't be stopped. It was like some snarly animal was stuck in the cage of my ribs, scraping to get out, and there were occasions when it managed to do so.

"Oh come on!" called Adam.

I still refused. My feet were firmly planted to the ground. Nobody was getting me to climb. I was kind of startled, then, to see that Adam was coming back down. Normally, he'd have stayed up there and annoyed me, saying he wasn't going to go anywhere until I came up there. I knew he must've seen something serious if he was ignoring his normal practice. When he reached the ground, he walked right past me and picked up his backpack, slinging it back across his shoulders. Then he set off deeper into the trees, pausing for a moment to point out the path he thought he should take, saying, "I think it was this way . . ."

Reluctantly, I followed him. After we walked out of sight of the field, when only trees surrounded us, I sucked up my pride and asked, "Where are we going?"

"I saw this thing from up there," said Adam, not seeming to recall how stubborn I'd been a few moments ago. That told me that he really had seen something of interest. He wasn't going to string me along on some search. "It kind of looked like part of an old tree house or something, but I'm not sure."

"Oh," was all I could manage. Tree houses were for little kids. I wasn't interested in them. But I remained silent and kept after Adam. Maybe it was something more than just a tree house. I couldn't imagine him caring about something less.