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I put a big chunk of sauce-soaked bread into be sleeping in your roo Maybe if Ime stay

"But I want you to know that I have Dean Wharton’s dog and she’s going to be sleeping in the hallway That dog is going to bark like hell if you go on one of your ht strolls I better not see you out of your rooo to the bathrooet back and start on your hoht," I say "Absolutely Thank you, sir"

I seldo hall alone Above the trees, their leaves the pale green of new buds, bats weave through the still-bright sky The air is heavy with the sh with s the wet, half-decoe of winter

Sae back to the door and head down as he doodles in the pages of his physics textbook He barely looks up when I flop down on the bed We have about three hours of ho study period is only two hours, so if you want to spend the break at half-past-nine not freaking out, you have to crairl biting out the brains of senior douchebag Jae is part of Sam’s homework, but if it is, his physics teacher is aweso problee of my notebook, I realize I don’t really re those books toward ned in y It’s so Zeus His pregnant girlfriend, Se to see Zeus in all his godly glory Despite knowing this is going to kill Se baby Dionysus out of burned-up Se No wonder Dionysus drank all the ti raised as a girl (to keep hiainst the door fra off one of his buds and turning in his chair

"Phone for you," Kyle says, looking in uess before everyone had a cell phone, the only way students could call home was to save up their quarters and feed them into the ancient pay phone at the end of every dorford has left those old phones where they were People occasionally still use the soes Orfrom jail

I pick up the familiar heavy black receiver "Hello?"

"I a you soft in the head What were you doing up on a roof?" Theoretically Mom shouldn’t be able to call another pay phone from the pay phone in prison, but she found a way around that First she gets es, then Maura can three-way call me, or anyone else Mom needs Lawyers Philip Barron

Of course, Mom could three-way call my cell phone, but she’s sure that all cell phone conversations are being listened to by soovern the in onto pickI have a brief fantasy of hi over

"Checking up on you? I’m your mother! I should be there! It is so unfair that I have to be cooped up like this while you’re gallivanting around on rooftops, getting into the kind of trouble you never would have if you had a stable fae I told him that if he put me away, this would happen Well, not this specifically, but no one can say I didn’t warn him"

Mom likes to talk She likes to talk sowith her and have a whole conversation in which you don’t say a word Especially nohen she’s far enough away that even if she’s pissed off she can’t put her hand to your bare skin and make you sob with remorse

Emotion work is powerful stuff

"Listen," she says "You are going ho our kind of people, at least Safe"

Our kind of people Workers Only I’m not one The only nonworker in my whole family I cup er?"

"Of course not Don’t be ridiculous You know I got the nicest letter from that count He wants to take et out of here What do you think of that? You should co I’ll tell him you’re my assistant"

I smile Sure she can be scary and manipulative, but she loves reat, honey You know this whole thing is so unfair I can’t believe they would take me away from my babies when you needto get this whole thing straightened out I told them you need me But if you could write a letter, that would help"

I knoon’t "I have to go, Mom It’s study period I’m not supposed to be on the phone"

"Oh, let me talk to that hall master of yours What’s his naet hi I’ot hoh, and then a sound that I know is her lighting a cigarette I hear the deep inhalation, the slight crackle of burning paper "Why? You’re done with that place"

"If I don’t do my homework, I will be"

"Sweetheart, you knohat your proble too seriously It’s because you’re the baby of the fa, stabbing the air for eainst the painted cinder block wall of the jail

"Bye, Mom"

"You stay with your brothers," she says softly "Stay safe"

"Bye, Moht

I stand in the hallway a few er, until the break starts and everyone files down to the coe on the first floor

Rahul Pathak and Jeremy Fletcher-Fiske, the other two junior-year soccer players in the house, wave me over to the striped couch they’ve settled on I wave back, take a hot chocolate packet, and e cup of coffee I think technically the coffee is supposed to be for staff, but we all drink it and no one says anything

When I sit down, Jereeebies?"

"Yeah, from your mother," I say, without any real heat HBG is the abbreviation for soeebies"

"Oh, come on," he says "Seriously, I have a proposition for you I need you to hook irlfriend and make her really hot for me At prom We can pay"

"I don’t know anyone like that"

"Sure you do," Jere at ure out why he has to even try to persuade hted to help That’s what I’ She wants to do it"

I wonder how h to keep me out of trouble "Sorry I can’t help you"