I passed the whole next morning managing not to talk to anybody. I mean, not a soul. I didn't open my mouth to my mom, Corey, teachers, or even Adam. We walked in total silence to school, me still brooding in my own anger and him feeling sorry for having brought up the subject during dinner. He didn't say he was sorry, but I could tell he was. I had no idea if he just got up and left after I barreled out of the kitchen. He might have stayed and finished his spaghetti, but for some reason, I didn't think he had.

I think that last day of school before summer vacation was the worst one of my life (if you go by the quantity of things that go wrong instead of the quality). I didn't concentrate on either of my finals. Gym actually freaked me out. I swear it was the first time all year Mr. Andre had actually required us to remember stuff. That exam could've been about the 1972 Olympics for all I knew. It was not a blow-off as I'd predicted. In the oral part of my German exam I swallowed my own spit the wrong way and started coughing, which caused Frau O'Brien to think I was choking and pull a Heimlich maneuver on me. Then, as if that all wasn't bad enough, Dylan "The Dope" Doyle actually pushed me into my own locker. It was totally unbelievable, especially since I was about a foot taller than him. But I was crouching down, like, trying to clear out the last junk from my locker when he came up from behind and kicked me, and I just sort of lost my balance and fell in head-first. They couldn't close the locker or anything, not with half of me sticking out. But it took me a while to get out of the thing just because I got stuck at kind of a weird angle.

I knew it was Dylan from his laugh. He was gone when I got out, but I knew it'd been him. Talk about a jerk. He got lucky, actually. I wasn't a fighter, like I've said before, but I was in a bad enough mood that I might have gone after him if I hadn't been stuck trying to get myself out of my locker.

Then I felt this hand on my shoulder and somebody was helping me regain my balance. I thought it was Adam, and I was about to thank him in a grudging sort of way, but then my whole mouth went dry because the person definitely wasn't Adam. For one thing, Adam didn't wear purple pants (at least, not that I knew of). And for another thing, he didn't have hair that reached all the way down to his belt. Long, brown hair. It belonged to Jessie Malloy, the girl in German class who didn't know my name.

"You aren't having a very good day, are you?" she said, holding her books off to one side.

I must've looked pretty stupid. I had no idea what to say or even do. "I . . . didn't think anybody noticed."

She laughed in this way that made me feel kind of sick but not mind it. "Frau pulling the Heimlich? How could anyone not notice?"

My whole head alarmingly felt as if it had been placed on a stove burner; it was a melting lump of butter. Heat flushed my face and trickled down my neck into my collar. The first thought in my mind was that a bird had pooped on my head. Not a pretty picture, but that had actually happened to me once on the beach. A seagull was getting in some target practice, and my head of hair must've stood out like a light bulb in the sea of brown sand. Anyway, my brain was all of a sudden jumping to that time a stupid bird had used me as his Johnny-on-the-spot. So the next word out of my mouth was (I'm ashamed to admit), "Poo . . ."

"Excuse me?" she chewed on her lip like I'd just said something that had given her pain.

"Uh . . ." I scrambled for an answer. "Who! Who. Who else . . . um, noticed?"

She shook her head. I could hear her hair swishing like sand. "I don't know." Her tone was aggravated. She lowered her eyebrows like she suddenly felt uncomfortable around me. I can't even tell you how lame I felt. "Well . . . have a nice summer, I guess." With that, she was gone.

That was how she ended it. Jessie Malloy. The girl from German class. I'd wanted to talk to her all year and there she was, ready to talk, and all I could mention was poo. If that stupid beach seagull had been there I would've shot it down, stuffed it, hung it on the garage wall, and then used it for target practice. I could do a lot of damage with a paintball gun.

The sudden urge to have a paintball gun in my hands was very strong. Adam saw it in my eyes when he came up to me.

"Sloppy Soldiers?" he asked.

All I could do was nod.

About half an hour later, Adam and I had changed into shades of green and brown and were on our way to the paintball haven. See, we had a deal with this guy named Troy McDermott, who was a nineteen-year-old Goldenrock High School drop-out. Troy worked at Sloppy Soldiers, and he lived near Adam. Every time we needed a ride to the place, he'd taxi us over in his piece-of-junk car if it worked into his schedule. Then, when we got there, we'd tell the manager that Troy McDermott had recommended us, and he got credit points as a worker or something.

Sloppy Soldiers had been my and Adam's refuge from our adolescent lives for the past two years. It gave us the chance to run around in the woods and hunt for each other like a couple of serious predators. For the first time since the disgusting heat set in late May, I was glad that it was summer. Paintball in the cold weather required a lot more clothing, and all the protective junk was a pain to put on over three layers. All we had to do that day was slip into the flimsy suit you had to wear and strap on face masks with goggles. Then we geared up with the paintball guns and supplies of our colorful bullets (green for me, blue for Adam) and we were on our way.

For the short five-minute walk from the supply building to the designated forest area, Adam and I were friends. But when we reached the fringe of gray-trunked trees, we were immediate enemies. He ran off to one side, and I jogged off in the opposite direction. I was already starting to sweat in the baggy suit, but sweat was nothing to me now. I was on the prowl. I had to develop eyeballs all over my body, so sweat just wasn't a big issue. The planet slipped from my brain. It was all about the hunt.

I sneaked behind a thin trunk. The trees here were different than the ones in the field beyond Adam's house, which were fat and old and resembled candles that gallons of wax had slobbered down. These trees were tall and skinny, and the branches didn't start until high up, where I couldn't reach. They were a real ashy color, like someone had rubbed old coals across the bark. Luckily, it was summer, and there were lots of bushes and left-over, half-rotten leaf piles to hide in. In the winter, it was a lot harder to stay camouflaged, because there was nothing to jump behind. Sneaking up on the enemy was almost impossible, not like it was now. Right then, I was getting ready for my first shot. Checking the ammo in my gun, aiming just right at the shoulder I saw barely sticking out from behind a tree about ten yards away. Adam was scrawny enough to actually fit most of himself behind the trees; my shape was more broad, so the best I could do was locate brush and plants and stay low. Of course, that made running more difficult, but I didn't have much choice.

This time, I was going to be lucky, though. Adam's back was to me, behind the gray trunk. I could just see the tip of his gun as he held it cocked and ready. With expert aim and the quiet of silence itself, I held my breath, pulled the trigger . . . and missed.

Clearly my aim was out of shape. The green bullet whizzed through the muggy air and splatted itself against not Adam, but the tree. At once, the piece of him that I could see vanished. There were some scuffling sounds, and then all of a sudden, I got anxious. The funny thing about paintball is that even though you know nothing bad can happen to you, you feel kind of freaked out. It just puts you in this mood—this mindset. It's all about adrenaline.

Too busy thinking, I hadn't listened close enough to where Adam had gone. There were lots of leaves around, but they were wet and floppy with the balmy weather, so Adam's steps weren't half as clear as they could've been if it was fall or early winter.

Something rocketed past my mask near my left ear, but I spun around just in time to miss it. I felt the air part as it nearly grazed the side of my head. A spurt of blue burst upon impact with an enormous boulder. Large rocks had been rolled into the trees just for us paintballers. Some were taller than me. In fact, I had come to know the woods pretty well, and I knew exactly where to go to escape Adam. I couldn't see him, but he could obviously see me, I realized as another blue blur flew past my face.

Throwing myself closer to the ground, I began to scramble awkwardly through the dirt and leaves. Not so far from where we were there was a strange area filled with towering rocks. It was like Stonehenge, only smaller and in the woods. The rocks were too big to climb up on, but they were perfect for jumping behind. And that's exactly what I did when I reached them. For a minute, I just stood there, catching my breath and feeling the hard stone press up against my back. My goggles were cheap and starting to sweat in the heat. Part of me really wanted to wipe them dry, but I knew that could scratch the lenses.

Then I heard him. Adam was walking lightly as he crept up, but I could still hear him. Even the droning cicadas couldn't silence his steps. It was something in his pants—a chain or something. He must've left his wallet chain (ha! he didn't even have a wallet) in the pocket of his pants. What a moron! Now I had him for sure.

It didn't strike me that I hadn't heard the chain earlier, like I would've if he'd left it in his pocket. All I could think about was the idea of smacking into him with a paintball. He was in close range, so I didn't need as much speed as I would otherwise. I lowered the velocity of the semi-auto by adjusting the dial rod, then re-loaded it with a couple of balls from the mesh bag at my waist. He was mine. I knew I had him. Closer and closer came the sound of the jangling chain. I was readying to leap out from behind the rock. Closer . . . closer . . . and then I was tearing around the stone like the Terminator, faster than I could even shoot—

And nobody was there. All I saw was empty woods. Letting my shoulders fall in irritation, I lowered the gun away from my face. I knew I'd heard that chain. Then I saw it, the thing that had been making the noise. Adam's wallet chain was lying on a bare spot on the ground, no more than five feet away from me.

My heart beat faster. Suddenly I knew. Without a thought, I tried frantically to round the stone, but a sharp pressure against my back between my shoulder blades told me I'd been caught.

I wasn't usually a sore loser, but this time I was annoyed. I tore off my mask and threw it down. "Hey! You cheated!"

He pulled off his own mask. "You're not supposed to take off your goggles unless we're in a no-firing zone!"

"Yeah, well that wasn't fair! You used an outside object as a decoy."

"So? We never said it couldn't be done."

"What, were you planning that all along?"

"No, I just realized when we were coming out that I'd forgotten to take it out of my pocket. So what? There isn't a rule against decoys."

He was right. We'd never specified rules about decoys. Still, it just didn't seem right somehow. "It wasn't fair."

He shrugged, then walked around to my back to check out the blue mark he'd fired. "Nothing's fair—so get over it." I was fuming, but I don't think he could tell. He was too busy thinking about his win. "Come on," he said. "Let's go another round."

I wasn't up for it, though. I told him so. I just wanted to go home.

"What a waste of allowance!" he said angrily.

"Yeah? Well it serves you right for bringing up this whole mess."

"What mess?"

"That stuff in the tree and asking my parents about what happened to me a long time back. Like it's any of your business."

"Chill out, Cole. Geez. No need to get your head stuck on a pole." Adam pulled his hair down around his face (it had been stuck back with sweat) and started to walk.

"Shut up! You have no idea what kind of a day I've had. First social studies, then German, then Dylan and poop . . . and now you cheating."

"Poop?" He turned around.

"I'm just tired of this stupid day, all right? And now I have to go home and deal with Corey and I just don't even want to look at him. He's acting like I've got some infectious disease and it's all your fault for bringing it up in the middle of dinner. Honestly, I'm just a little bit—a lot weirded out by those stories you found. It just doesn't make any sense right now, Adam, and I think if one more thing goes wrong today my head . . . is going . . . to explode!" Heat flushed between my ears and behind my eyes; I felt like something was thundering around inside my skull just dying to be let out, but I couldn't even explain it with how totally furious I was.

All of a sudden, Adam was staring at me with this look like he was completely freaked out. Like he was afraid of me or something. Like I was a monster. He kind of leaned back an inch or two to get away from me, and then he said in this awed voice, "Whoa . . . do that again."

I was too mad to care. "What?" I asked, really tired all of a sudden.

"That thing—that thing you just did with your eyes."

I lowered my eyebrows, and it was my turn to stare.

"Like . . . like there's Christmas lights in your head or something," he said, still in this all-quiet voice that drove me crazy. "I swear your eyes just had sparks in them. Like little white comets going over your . . . what's it called?"

"Retina?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever. Like that."

Now I have to be honest. I really had felt something strange go through me—something I'd never experienced before—but I wasn't quite there when it came to understanding. So I got more mad than agreeable, and with only a nasty look at Adam, I pushed past him and moved toward the edge of the woods. The game was over.