Summer school started the last week of June. It was six weeks long. Six whole weeks of suffering in school when I should've been at the pool or Sloppy Soldiers. I didn't see Adam again until the first day of torture began. He called me the night before school started and asked if I wanted to walk with him. I told him no problem. We didn't even mention that he'd been hiding in his basement for practically two weeks. I was so relieved, though, to have him call. I'd started to get kind of worried. I mean, being moody is one thing, but sitting in your room for two weeks? Well, that wasn't even like Adam, and he could be strange.

We talked like nothing had happened (and nothing really had). He was the one that mentioned the tree house. He told me he'd been there and grabbed the rest of the papers and started reading them. That was actually a really comforting thought. The whole time I'd been sitting in my room reading those stories, he'd been doing the same. It was good to know he wasn't just lying around moping about who-knows-what.

Goldenrock High was where the summer school was being held. I didn't know the building too well, but it wasn't difficult to find our way around in it. There were signs up, and teenagers were wandering around. All the middle school classes were in one particular hall; of course, it was at the butt-end of the building. We had to practically walk a mile to get to the end of it.

I recognized faces here and there, but none of them belonged to kids I spoke to. Then Adam and I had to split. He went to the reading room, and I went to the math room. It was an hour-and-a-half of suffering. I could tell right from the beginning that the math teacher was just going to be a robot for the next six weeks. She was a boring forty-something, and within the first ten minutes, I was struggling to stay awake. It didn't matter. She only talked about discipline for the whole class period. With all us horrible kids who were so bad we had to go to summer school, she must have felt she had to. I wanted to tell her that she'd have no discipline problems if she was this dull the whole time; we'd all be too busy sleeping to cause trouble.

Gym was no better. In fact, gym was worse, even with Adam being there. First off, he didn't change out. His excuse was that he'd forgotten his clothes, and the gym teacher let him off, saying it was only the first day so he'd be excused. I knew Adam, though. He wouldn't bring gym clothes the next day . . . or the next day . . . or the next. He'd be sitting on the bleachers for the whole six weeks. Not me, though. I didn't want to get in trouble. I really needed to work on passing gym, as much as I didn't want to.

Another reason I could tell that gym was going to be like my own personal Hell was that the jerk of the universe, Dylan Doyle, was in it too. The loser leprechaun who enjoyed making life difficult for me. I noticed through a sneaky sideways glimpse that he kept his mouth shut the whole while. Even when the teacher did role, Dylan just raised his hand and nodded. I wondered if he'd gotten the brackets of his braces replaced yet.

When I thought about it, I couldn't recall seeing a story about him. Maybe there had been one and his name had been disguised. But all the stories were about people who had good things about them. Dylan didn't have anything good in him. He was pure trouble. It was no wonder there wasn't a story for him.

Gym plodded on. We ran. We did jumping jacks. We did stretches. All that dumb stuff. I was so wet with sweat you'd have thought I'd just gotten out of a pool. And the teacher said we'd be playing sports outside. Part of me thought that wouldn't be so bad; it was probably cooler outside under the sun than in the stuffiness of the gym. Maybe there'd at least be a breeze out there. The only good thing about gym was that it didn't take brains to get through it. We just had to run the mile, do so many pull-ups, complete the rope climb, and participate in few other things to get through it. I realized I'd at least be able to pass the rope climb. One small little speck of a star in the black-blotted sky that was turning into my summer.

When Adam and I were walking home after that first day, I brought up the stories again. I really wanted him to read what I'd read, and I wanted his stack. He agreed to switch over with me. "You know what I've been wondering most?" I asked.

"No." He shook his hair. I was jealous for a minute because he wasn't drenched in sweat like I was. Bleacher-sitting didn't have the same effect on your sweat glands as exercising.

"I want to know who wrote the stuff. Do any of them have signatures of the author? Did you check?"

"I didn't see anything on mine, but I'm wondering the same thing. Because if there's someone out there watching us and writing down things like your getting lost and my . . . my old man leaving—well, it's kind of weird. I'd just like to know who it is, that's all. I'd like to avoid them so I don't end up with anything else written about me."

"Some of it's made up. Like all the things I'd done, they were embellished; I guess that's the right word. A lot of the stuff it talked about didn't seem that way when I did it."

"I know. That's why I don't want to read that one about me. I don't want to read stuff that isn't real, that some freak made up about me."

I wanted to tell him that there was nothing made up about his story, at least, not that I could tell. But I didn't. I don't think he would've wanted me to keep a conversation about his dad going on. "That summer school," I said, changing the subject, "that's going to bite."

"Tell me about it. I've survived the past few times, though. You'll make it."

"Did you notice Doyle's in gym?"

"I try not to notice him."

"Yeah. Well, he's there. So's that kid Pete Kristo."

Adam shrugged. "In reading there's Maggie Brick. She's the one who picks her nose and flicks it. I saw her do it twice in class. I'm just glad I sit behind her." He paused, then a memory struck him. "Hey! Isn't Pete the one who blew up a cat last winter? New Year's Eve, with a fire cracker?"

"That's what I've heard."

"Sick." Adam half-laughed, though. "I wish I'd seen it. I mean, it's wrong and all, but can you imagine the guts?"

I shook my head. "I'd rather not, actually. But I really wish he'd told me he was going to do it. I would've offered him Scuzz. I'm sick of that dumb animal."

"Pete got time in juvie hall for that one, I think. He's a twisted kid. I have to admit, I wouldn't want to jog next to him while running the mile. He might decide to ignite your hair or something. I heard he's a pyro, too."

We laughed. I'm not even sure what we laughed at. Pete Kristo's freakish habits were more frightening than funny. Still, it was good to laugh. Adam needed to smile, that's for sure. When he caught himself doing it, though, he wiped it off real fast. There were some guys approaching us from the other direction, and Adam Nyler wasn't known for smiling. He wouldn't want to disrupt his reputation of being so mellow that the ground could fall away and he wouldn't mind.

When the guys passed, not even looking at either one of us, Adam flung out an arm and smacked me across the chest. "Ham at twelve o'clock!" he hissed.

I knew what he meant by mentioning time. In paintball, we always thought in terms of a clock when talking about someone's position. I looked in the right direction, and there she was. The Abominable Ham, less than twenty feet away and closing in. She was coming right toward us. I couldn't tell if she noticed who we were yet, though. If she did, she might attack. She'd pound us into mulch. Rip us limb from limb. Geez, all she had to do was sit on us and—

All of a sudden, I was unbelievably ashamed of myself. Where was my mind going? How had I just jumped from seeing her to thinking that she was going to beat us up? Her story flashed in my mind. Crying in a cave in the woods. All alone. No friends. Made fun of all the time. Was all of that even true? I didn't know. I had no idea what was right or wrong. All I knew for sure was that she was getting closer, and she definitely did recognize who we were. A look flashed across her chubby face, and I'm pretty sure that before it turned stone-mad, it was scared.

I didn't want to walk right past her. That would be like asking for a mess. Adam would cause trouble; I could see it in the way his walk turned more into a saunter and he lowered his head a notch. Kind of grabbing his arm, I pulled him off of the sidewalk and forced him to cross the street with me. He was annoyed, but he didn't say anything until we were out of hearing range. Then he casually said, "What did you do that for?" His hands went into his pockets. His chain jangled at the side of his pants.

Part of me felt strange. "I don't know. Do you ever wonder if maybe she isn't as mean as she looks?"

"No, not really."

"Oh." I didn't want to talk about what I'd read. Adam could read it on his own.

The Ham just went on her way, hardly giving us more than a glance. I watched her for a moment as her form faded in the waves of heat rippling off the sidewalk. Then, Adam shocked me with something. "I'm going to get my ear pierced tomorrow at that tattoo and piercing place downtown."

I raised an eyebrow. Adam had always talked about it. Now here he was throwing an actual time and place at me.

"You can come, if you want," he added.

"Yeah right," I muttered. "That place creeps me out. All those freaky biker guys are always hanging out there."

"That's half the fun of it."

I shook my head. "So I guess your mom finally agreed, huh?"

"No. She doesn't know."

"But don't you have to have someone eighteen or older with you—something like that? You can't go by yourself." I was glad to hear his mom hadn't said yes. That would've just shaken up my image of her.

Adam sighed like I was the most ignorant person alive. "I talked Troy into taking me down. I've been saving for a while, and he said he'd take me in if I give him twenty bucks."

"Twenty bucks? For Troy McDermott? That's so not worth it!" I was really annoyed, all of a sudden. Adam could be so stubborn sometimes. Troy was good for a ride to Sloppy Soldiers once in a while, but twenty bucks for a stupid earring? It was just lame.

Pushing bangs away from his eyes, Adam replied, "It's worth it to me. I'm getting an earring, then I'm getting out of here. I hate Goldenrock. It's like Hell on Earth." He stretched out a hand and traced the horizon. "I'm going to go find my dad. He's out there somewhere. I'll get him. You just see."

I wanted to go off on the comment that Goldenrock was a pothole in the road of U.S. cities. I wanted to tell Adam that the only reason he hated it was because his father wasn't in it. I'll admit that Goldenrock would've been better named something like Dustypebble, but it definitely wasn't as bad as fire and brimstone or whatever. It could've been a lot worse. At least the trees changed color in the fall and snow fell in the winter. The summer wasn't so great, but it was bearable. And there were some ratty places, like the trailer park houses on the edge of town. But for the most part, it was like any other place. It wasn't New York, but how many cities were?

Anyway, I didn't say anything about Adam's dad. I satisfied myself with rolling my eyes again and mumbling under my breath, "An earring will make you look even more like a girl." He snarled in my general direction, then started to cross the street. I'd offended him. He was irritated, but I didn't care. An earring would make him look more like a girl. Who cared how cool he thought it'd be? We walked the rest of our ways home on opposite sides of the street. Adam didn't cross back over, and there was no chance of me taking back what I'd said. Maybe some part of me was jealous, but I really couldn't tell. Adam did what he wanted, even when he didn't really know what that was.

And I could've sworn, walking my way with the tips of my ears burning in frustration, that little lights flicked off of the back of my shoes as I went.