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  He got down on his knees and hugged her. Smasher panted, snorted, squirmed in his arms. She stretched her neck to lick his nose.

  Behind her came Angelo’s mother, like a snowman stuffed in a yellow dress with big red roses all over it. She called Angelo patatino. “Ah, there’s my patatino,” she said. “And who’s this?”

  “Igor, Ma.”

  “Hello, Igor!” She pinched my face with her thumbs, smiling so warmly that I could only smile right back. “Doesn’t he look like your uncle Paolo?”

  “Ma, Uncle Paolo’s eighty years old,” said Angelo.

  “Well, when he was a boy,” she told him.

  “Yeah, okay,” said Angelo. “We’re going upstairs, Ma.”

  “You want something to eat?”

  “Not just now.”

  With Smasher running laps around Angelo’s feet, we walked through a living room that looked like a museum. There were red chairs with thick seats, lamps with enormous shades, oil paintings in clunky frames. A grandfather clock ticked away the time with a pendulum the size of a shovel, and a crucified Jesus watched sadly over all of it.

  “Nobody ever sits in here,” said Angelo. “Not since my dad died.”

  Upstairs, his bedroom made me jealous. On a table stood a huge TV, on a desk a big computer and an iPad. He had a hockey stick and a baseball glove, a football and a Frisbee, and shelves full of toys that he probably hadn’t touched in years.

  “Come on, Smash,” said Angelo. He flopped across his bed, and the little dog sprang up beside him. I realized why it had such a funny way of moving.

  “Your dog’s only got three legs,” I said.

  “Yeah, she used to have four,” said Angelo. “Then she got hit by a car.” He held her up with his arms straight, like he was bench-pressing her.

  “What kind of a dog is she?” I asked.

  “Sort of a mixture.” Angelo laughed as she squirmed in his hands. “She’s mostly a bloodhound.”

  “She doesn’t look like a bloodhound,” I said.

  “You should see how she tracks. It’s like the Manhunter.”

  I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t ask.

  Angelo bent his arms, lowering the dog until he could kiss her. She kissed him back with her pink, fluttering tongue, and I thought that if I’d seen that on my first day at school I would never have been afraid of Angelo.

  He looked over at me. “You like Medal of Honor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A video game, you loser.”

  With a shake of his head, Angelo set up the game on PlayStation. He had a character named Johnny Shiloh. “He’s like a war hero,” Angelo told me. “I’ve had him two years and he’s never been killed.” For me, Angelo made a character named Bob.

  I was hopeless. Poor Bob never lasted more than five minutes, and every time he came to life again he died again. But Angelo was amazing. He became Johnny Shiloh, running and crawling and somersaulting across the battlefield. He kept telling me where the enemy was hiding, because he’d played the game a million times, and the room shook with the sounds of our battle.

  I lost track of time. The next thing I knew, Angelo’s mother was shouting up the stairs that supper was almost ready.

  “Okay, Ma!” yelled Angelo. On the screen, Johnny Shiloh was racing across a bridge. Angelo cried, “Look out behind you!”

  There was a blare of machine-gun sounds. The controller started vibrating in my hands, and Bob died again.

  I checked my watch. It was 5:59. “Oh, no!” I said. “I have to go home.”

  “Call your mom.” Johnny Shiloh sprinted across a street and leapt onto a pile of rubble. Angelo kept twisting the controller in his hand, clicking the buttons like crazy. “Tell her you’re staying for supper.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “We don’t have a phone.”

  Angelo was so surprised that he looked away from the game. In that moment, Johnny Shiloh got shot. The screen turned red with oozing blood, and the little man who’d fought for two years, who had won ten thousand battles, lay dying on a painted street.

  “No!” said Angelo. “Noooo!” He pressed every button; he pushed every lever. He was like a doctor working with medical machines, trying to save Johnny Shiloh. I could hear the humming throb of his controller, a heartbeat slowing down. Then the game ended.

  Angelo groaned. “He’s gone. Johnny Shiloh’s dead!”

  He dropped his controller and lay back with his arm over his eyes. Smasher sprang up to lick his face, but Angelo pushed her away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Forget it.” Smasher kept lunging at him, whining and licking, and Angelo fended her off. “So why don’t you have a phone?” he asked. “I thought everyone had a phone.”

  “Well, my mom has one but—”

  “Then call that one.”

  “It doesn’t have a number.”

  “Every phone has a number,” said Angelo.

  “Not my mom’s. It’s a special phone.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Angelo. He didn’t believe me, and I didn’t blame him. He said, “If you don’t want to call her, just say so.”

  “No, it’s true,” I said. “She’s a telemarketer. She’s got a phone that lets her call people, but no one can call her. It doesn’t have a number or something. I don’t know, but it can’t be traced. Not even by the CIA.”

  “Really?” asked Angelo.

  “That’s what my dad says.”

  “Wow. That’s crazy.”

  Wait till you hear the rest, I thought.

  Downstairs, Mrs. Bonito shouted again. “Angelo, it’s on the table!”

  “Okay, Ma!” He lowered his voice. “If I don’t eat now she’ll kill me.”

  His mom was disappointed that I wasn’t staying for dinner. “I made noodles,” she said.

  “Ma, you mean oodles,” said Angelo. “But he’s gotta go.”

  “You want to take some with you?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said. Then she pinched my cheeks again, and Angelo took me to the door.

  “See you, Watson,” he said as he let me out.

  So I said, “Yeah, see you, Bonito,” and set off for home.

  I ran all the way to Dead End Road. I went up the steps two at a time, across the porch in a bound. As I reached the door the letter slot opened. “It’s Igor!” shouted Bumble.

  Everyone came to meet me. Mom stood in the background, touching her eyes with a dish towel. Dad’s old makeup gave him a creepy smile. He said, “Come in.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I told him. “I was—”

  “I know where you were.”

  I didn’t believe him; it seemed impossible. Still, I felt a little shiver, a hint of the fear that my dad always knew when I was doing something wrong.

  “You’ll be staying around home next weekend,” said Dad. “You’re grounded again.”

  MY CRAZY DAD

  The next morning, I got to Mr. Meanie’s house before Angelo did. I leaned against the fence to wait, kind of hoping the old man would come out and yell at me. But he didn’t. When I saw Angelo shambling up the street with his hands in his pockets, I knew something was wrong.

  He didn’t say hi like he normally did. He didn’t smile or punch my arm. He kept looking at the ground as we walked toward school.

  I said, “What’s new, patatino?”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said. “You have to be an Italian mother to use that word.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “‘Little potato.’”

  It made me laugh. But Angelo was silent and serious. We were nearly at the school before he spoke again.

  “Your dad’s a nut,” he said. “He called my mom yesterday. Just after you left.”

  So what Dad had said was true. I know where you were. But how he had figured it out was a mystery. “What did he say?” I asked.

  “A lot,” said Angelo. “Mom picked up the
phone and here’s this guy yelling at her. ‘Where’s my son?’”

  “I guess he was worried,” I said.

  “He wanted to know where we live. He was going to come to the house,” said Angelo. “But Ma told him you’d already gone.”

  “How did he know who to call?” I asked. “How did he get your number?”

  “I don’t know,” said Angelo. “But he’s a little bit scary, and a whole lot crazy.”

  I learned the rest of the story in gym class. I was sitting on the changing bench when Mr. Moran came out of his office with his silver whistle hanging around his neck. He put on his red hat, then twisted it back and forth to make it comfortable.

  I shouted, “Are we going inside or outside, sir?”

  A few people laughed. Everyone waited for Mr. Moron to tell me, “Look at the hat!”

  But this time he just motioned with his thumb. “Into the sin bin, Igor.”

  I had to get up and walk past him. Then he followed me into the office and closed the door. Outside, the boys were whispering.

  “I expect that sort of thing from Trevis and the others,” said Mr. Moran. “I thought you were better than them. Guess I was wrong.”

  I felt awful.

  He took off his hat, tossed it onto the desk, and sat in his big swivel chair. “Everything all right at home, Igor?”

  I could barely mumble, “Yes, sir.”

  “Did your father tell you he talked to me yesterday?”

  “No,” I said. That explained everything.

  “He came to the school lookin’ for you. Guess he was drivin’ around, lookin’ everywhere. I was out on the field with the baseball team. He came up to me. Asked if I knew you.”

  Mr. Moran clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “He wanted to know who your friends were. Where you go after school. What sort of things you get up to. I told him I don’t know much about you. Except you’re a good kid. Used to keep to yourself, and now you chum around with the Bonito boy.”

  Mr. Moran sighed and spread his hands apart. “Your father seemed …I don’t know—off the wall. I told him, ‘Your boy’s probably playin’ ball.’ But he said, ‘My boy doesn’t play ball.’ He said, ‘My boy should be doing what he’s told.’”

  That sounded like Dad, all right.

  “He came in here to use my phone. Had to call the Bonito place right then. Couldn’t wait another minute.” Mr. Moran stood up and put on his hat again. “You’re growin’ up, Igor. Findin’ your feet. If your father can’t accept that, well, that’s his lookout. Don’t let him stuff you back in a sack.”

  He opened the office door. “Just keep in mind he cares about you. Has a funny way of showin’ it, but he does.”

  FOUR-RING CIRCUS

  It was the second week of May when Bumble had her birthday. Mom made the traditional birthday supper that she called the four-ring circus. Arranged together on my plate were all of Bumble’s favorite foods—two fish sticks, a slice of meatloaf, and a scoop of macaroni, all piled on a frozen waffle.

  “Oooh, boy, the foreign circus!” said Bumble.

  Supper was followed by a chocolate cake with five candles burning on top. As Mom put it down in front of a grinning Bumble, she said, “Make a wish, Bumblebee.”

  I remembered my last birthday wish, that the Lizard Man would find us. It seemed like a silly idea that I’d had long ago. Bumble scrunched up her eyes and said, “I wish we never bug out.”

  Mom smiled. “So do I.”

  “I want to live here happily forever after,” said Bumble.

  She knelt on her chair, leaned on the table, and blew out the candles—all five in one breath. They were still smoking when Mom plucked them from the cake and started cutting slices.

  “You know, I had my doubts at first,” she said. “But it’s turned out well. I feel more at home than I’ve ever felt before. It’s a good place.”

  “It’s a great place,” I said.

  “It’s the best place ever,” said Bumble.

  We looked at Dad, expecting a little speech. He was fiddling with his fork, tapping the tines on the table.

  “Don’t you like it here, Dad?” asked Bumble.

  The fork twirled slowly through his fingers like a tiny baton. He said, “We can’t afford to become complacent.”

  “What’s come placement?” asked Bumble.

  “Complacent,” Dad corrected her. “Blind to danger.”

  “Oh, honey,” said Mom. “You said we’d be safe here. Don’t you think we can relax a little bit?”

  “I do not.” Dad laid the fork flat and set it perfectly straight on his napkin. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking it might be time to move on.”

  “No!” wailed Bumble. She kicked the table hard enough to rattle our water glasses, then crossed her arms and scowled.

  I thought I could help if I told my own story. I said, “It’s like Angelo.”

  “Oh?” said Dad in his sarcastic voice. “And just how, exactly, is this like Angelo?”

  “I used to be scared of him.”

  Mom gaped. “Your friend?”

  “Yes, Mom.” I told them about my second morning at Rutherford B. Hayes, about Angelo being a bully. I explained how I’d thought I’d be safe if I kept running away.

  “You see, Dad?” I said. “I never should have been scared, ’cause he wasn’t really going to kill me. He just wanted me to think he would kill me.”

  “I get your point,” said Dad. “But you—”

  “A bully’s like a dog that chases cats,” I said. “He does it for fun, until the cat fights back. Then he stops. If you stand up to a bully you see that he’s not all that scary after all.”

  Dad picked up his fork again and turned it end over end.

  I said, “My teacher Mr. Moran says you have to go in and play the game. If you hold back you feel safe. But you can’t win until you go in and take your shots. A bully never stops.”

  “Neither do you, apparently.”

  I felt like he’d slapped me.

  “Look,” said Dad. “You’re twelve years old. You think you know everything, but you don’t. Angelo being a bully has nothing to do with our situation. You have no idea what’s really going on.”

  “Then tell me,” I said.

  He shook his head. “The less you know, the better.”

  ASKING THE FOLKS

  The days became sunny and hot. Behind the yellow house, the river grew so shallow that sandbars began to appear. If I’d been allowed to do it, I could have walked right across.

  I loved the warm weather. Like all the boys in my class, I wore T-shirts all the time, and my arms turned from skinny white pipes to skinny brown pipes. The girls wore colorful little blouses—except for Zoe. Looking stranger than ever, she still strode through the school in her long black coat.

  I was walking home with Angelo on a Friday when he asked me to stay overnight at his house.

  “I got a new game,” he said. “It’s like Medal of Honor but even better. You can fry people with a flamethrower! You can see their skin melt.”

  I thought that sounded horrible, but Angelo’s eyes glowed like little lamps. “We could play all night. We could play till dawn.”

  “Cool.” I didn’t tell Angelo I had never stayed up after midnight.

  “Come over tomorrow,” he said. “You can go home on Sunday.”

  “I’ll ask my folks.” I called them folks now, because that was what Angelo called them.

  “Ask your mom,” he said. “Don’t ask your dad. He’s a dork.”

  Angelo still hadn’t met either of my folks. Everything he knew he’d learned from me, and I felt bad about the things I’d said. “He just worries a lot,” I told Angelo. “He likes to know what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, he’s a control freak. Let’s go ask your mom right now before he gets home.”

  We took the shortcut and found the minivan parked in the driveway. Angelo said, “Your dad must be home.”

  “No, he wa
lks to work,” I said. “But he could be home; I don’t know.”

  “I’ll wait for you here.”

  Angelo walked over and leaned against the spindly poplar tree in our front yard. He never stood up straight if there was something to lean against.

  I went to the house and knocked on the door. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. When Bumble looked out at me through the letter slot I told her, “Get Mom.”

  Thomas the Tank Engine was babbling away in the living room. Upstairs, the shower was running. Mom had to come from the kitchen to let me in. As I came through the door she turned around and went right back there.

  I trailed behind her. “Is it okay if I sleep over at Angelo’s tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Just a minute; I’m in the middle of something.” Mom sat in her chair by the spy phone and started writing in her book. Upstairs, the shower stopped; the door banged. I imagined Dad reaching for a towel, wrapping it around his waist. I wanted to get out of the house before he came downstairs and started asking questions.

  “Mom, Angelo’s waiting,” I told her.

  She held up a hand, wrote a few more words, then closed the book. “All right,” she said. “Now what were you asking?”

  “Can I sleep over at Angelo’s house tomorrow?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Mom. “But you’d better ask your father.”

  “Well, forget it then,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “He’ll say no.”

  “I wasn’t aware you could predict the future,” said Mom.

  “He always says no,” I told her. “He just wants to wreck my life.”

  “I don’t believe that’s his goal,” said Mom. “He—”

  “Could you ask him? Please?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to ask him yourself.” She pulled her headset over her ears. “Here he comes now.”