it.
Breathlessly, like a runner finishing a race, he says Kevin’s name, giving a sympathetic dip of his chin. “Hello again. You’re supposed to follow me.”
Without thinking, Kevin gets up and accompanies him downstairs. They both skip the last step with an instinctive little elastic stride, as if they’re avoiding a puddle.
If you had asked him, Kevin would have said he was sure the stairwell door opened at the back corner of the lunchroom, but the wall must have spun ten feet to the left, because they end up in the kitchen instead, behind the Formica counter where the science club and the spirit squad conduct their pizza sales. The man leads him through a darkened side room,then past the vending machines and microwaves to the table where Asa Stephens and Danny Morgan usually sit.
He makes a jellyfish gesture with his fingers:
Have a seat
.
Kevin takes the bench across from him. He has never seen the lunchroom so deserted. He can hear the Coke machines humming like spaceships.
“So,” the man says—a finished statement. “It’s been pretty awful, hasn’t it?”
“Thad and Kenneth and everything. Yeah. Am I supposed to go over it all again with you?”
“You can if you want.”
“Well, I just finished telling Miss Vincent, and she said—” On the table Kevin notices a pattern of sunlight guttering through leaves. He turns to face the row of windows. “Hey, it stopped raining.”
“For now it has, absolutely.”
“Weird. Where’s Mr. McCallum, anyway? Shouldn’t he be here for this? Miss Vincent said she was going to call the principal.”
“Mr. McCallum is waiting upstairs for you. I promise he’ll stay there as long as it takes.”
Kevin scrutinizes the man: his lean neck, his dark beard, the pigment spots on his forehead. His mannerisms are oddly familiar, like those of some halfway relative in the background of a hundred family photos, all mild words and big stage gestures. He has one prominent canine tooth. His eyeglasses are shaped like elongated stop signs. And the way his hair thins to silk on top and flares back in a great puff at the sides reminds Kevin of—oh—what was his name?—that small skullish guy who commanded the Death Star. “You’re not a guidance counselor, are you,” Kevin says.
“A guidance counselor, that’s good!” The man has a generous laugh, much bigger than it appears he would. Each
ha
is like a perfect circle, soaring out of him one after the other, a tunnel of glowing blue rings. “A guidance counselor! No, think of me as a sort of chaperone. A courier.”
“So you don’t want to talk about Thad and Kenneth?”
“Well, again, we can if you’d like, but no. Truth is, I know the Thad and Kenneth story already. By heart. What I want is to offer you a way out.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Here, look. This is—will turn out to have been—the worst few weeks of—well, your childhood, at least. Your school years. That I can promise you, Kevin. Right now you think the harm is irreparable, and you know what? You’re right. It is irreparable. It is. You’ve changed. From now on, for good or ill, however fractionally, you’re going to be a different person.”
The transparent hairs on Kevin’s arms prickle.
“I know, I know, you don’t want to be a different person. Believe me, I understand. And that’s why I’m here. Life is difficult and confusing, but—and here’s the thing—it comes with an escape switch. Everyone gets their chance to press it if they want. This is yours.”
He situates his glasses on his forehead. Some people’s eyes seem to soften without their glasses. His, though, sharpen to a knife-edge. “Do you understand what I mean?”
“Not the remotest clue.”
“No? Look around.”
Kevin can’t stop sniffling. He wipes his nose with one of the Kleenex Miss Vincent gave him. When he was a kid, in first and second grade, he would cry so furiously sometimesthat his jaw ached and sweat pasted his hair to his scalp, yet
Breathlessly, like a runner finishing a race, he says Kevin’s name, giving a sympathetic dip of his chin. “Hello again. You’re supposed to follow me.”
Without thinking, Kevin gets up and accompanies him downstairs. They both skip the last step with an instinctive little elastic stride, as if they’re avoiding a puddle.
If you had asked him, Kevin would have said he was sure the stairwell door opened at the back corner of the lunchroom, but the wall must have spun ten feet to the left, because they end up in the kitchen instead, behind the Formica counter where the science club and the spirit squad conduct their pizza sales. The man leads him through a darkened side room,then past the vending machines and microwaves to the table where Asa Stephens and Danny Morgan usually sit.
He makes a jellyfish gesture with his fingers:
Have a seat
.
Kevin takes the bench across from him. He has never seen the lunchroom so deserted. He can hear the Coke machines humming like spaceships.
“So,” the man says—a finished statement. “It’s been pretty awful, hasn’t it?”
“Thad and Kenneth and everything. Yeah. Am I supposed to go over it all again with you?”
“You can if you want.”
“Well, I just finished telling Miss Vincent, and she said—” On the table Kevin notices a pattern of sunlight guttering through leaves. He turns to face the row of windows. “Hey, it stopped raining.”
“For now it has, absolutely.”
“Weird. Where’s Mr. McCallum, anyway? Shouldn’t he be here for this? Miss Vincent said she was going to call the principal.”
“Mr. McCallum is waiting upstairs for you. I promise he’ll stay there as long as it takes.”
Kevin scrutinizes the man: his lean neck, his dark beard, the pigment spots on his forehead. His mannerisms are oddly familiar, like those of some halfway relative in the background of a hundred family photos, all mild words and big stage gestures. He has one prominent canine tooth. His eyeglasses are shaped like elongated stop signs. And the way his hair thins to silk on top and flares back in a great puff at the sides reminds Kevin of—oh—what was his name?—that small skullish guy who commanded the Death Star. “You’re not a guidance counselor, are you,” Kevin says.
“A guidance counselor, that’s good!” The man has a generous laugh, much bigger than it appears he would. Each
ha
is like a perfect circle, soaring out of him one after the other, a tunnel of glowing blue rings. “A guidance counselor! No, think of me as a sort of chaperone. A courier.”
“So you don’t want to talk about Thad and Kenneth?”
“Well, again, we can if you’d like, but no. Truth is, I know the Thad and Kenneth story already. By heart. What I want is to offer you a way out.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Here, look. This is—will turn out to have been—the worst few weeks of—well, your childhood, at least. Your school years. That I can promise you, Kevin. Right now you think the harm is irreparable, and you know what? You’re right. It is irreparable. It is. You’ve changed. From now on, for good or ill, however fractionally, you’re going to be a different person.”
The transparent hairs on Kevin’s arms prickle.
“I know, I know, you don’t want to be a different person. Believe me, I understand. And that’s why I’m here. Life is difficult and confusing, but—and here’s the thing—it comes with an escape switch. Everyone gets their chance to press it if they want. This is yours.”
He situates his glasses on his forehead. Some people’s eyes seem to soften without their glasses. His, though, sharpen to a knife-edge. “Do you understand what I mean?”
“Not the remotest clue.”
“No? Look around.”
Kevin can’t stop sniffling. He wipes his nose with one of the Kleenex Miss Vincent gave him. When he was a kid, in first and second grade, he would cry so furiously sometimesthat his jaw ached and sweat pasted his hair to his scalp, yet
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