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  Jeremy said nothing.

  When he was done, Aaron shoved his soggy mound of clothing into a plastic bag and stepped out. He grinned when he saw Jeremy beside the door, holding a bag of his own. “Hey, Jer,” he said happily. But when he saw the expression on Jeremy’s face, his grin faded.

  “I’ve had it with you!” Jeremy said. “I don’t know why I thought we could be friends. You’re a loser. We’re done. Just remember that. We’re done!”

  Aaron’s mouth made a round O, like the guppies did when they were out of the water. He didn’t say anything. What could he say?

  * * *

  That night Aaron couldn’t sleep. He lay on his bed listening to the sounds around him: creaks in the walls, windy whispers at his window, mechanical clicks and whirs from the furnace in the basement, Gran snoring softly in her room.

  Two more days, he told himself, two more days and my dad’s coming. But there was no joy in the thought because with it came the worry: What if he thinks I’m a loser too? Will he say, “We’re done,” and go away…again? Maybe forever this time.

  SEVENTEEN

  On Friday morning Aaron didn’t want to go to school, but Gran insisted, so he went. In the classroom, he didn’t do much except sit.

  Mr. Collins noticed. “Aaron?” he said, talking low. Aaron didn’t answer.

  “Aaron?” Mr. Collins said again. “Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

  Aaron felt the teacher’s hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it away. When Mr. Collins left, he slipped to the floor and sat under his desk, legs crossed, body swaying. His fingers began picking plaster from the edge of his new cast, the one the doctor had given him last night. There were no names on this one. Not even Gran’s.

  After a while, the classroom whispers invaded his ears. Talking about me. Loser me. He felt eyes watching. When he looked up, the eyes shifted away. Except Jeremy’s eyes. His eyes didn’t have to shift. He wasn’t watching. Aaron knew why. Done. We’re done. That’s what Jeremy had said. We’re done.

  At one point Mr. Collins raised his voice. “Enough!” he shouted, startling the class into silence.

  By noon Aaron’s fingernails were packed with plaster dust. The one work sheet he had attempted was wrinkled and smudged, the margins filled with slashes and puncture holes. It wasn’t finished.

  After lunch, Ms. Masilo came to pick up the class for another rehearsal.

  “You coming, Aaron?” she asked. He nodded. He walked all the way to the gym beside Mr. Collins. While his teacher settled on a bench at the side of the room, Aaron climbed the stairs to the stage. He stood with the rest of the class, but he felt alone. An island of boy in a sea of kids.

  He saw Ms. Masilo’s lips move behind her smile, but it was Jeremy’s voice that filled his head. We’re done. We’re done. We’re done.

  When Ms. Masilo’s hands went up, the class sang. Aaron heard but didn’t join in, and he didn’t laugh when Tufan’s voice rose and fell like a yo-yo with a knotted string.

  Ms. Masilo tapped her baton. The singing stopped. Aaron watched as she turned her smile at Mr. Collins. “I just had a thought,” she said. “Maybe for this one concert, Tufan and…and Aaron could do something else. Instead of singing, I mean.”

  Mr. Collins frowned. “Like what?”

  “Well, maybe they could make the introductions, or they could…” She paused. “They could ask the audience to turn off their cell phones.”

  Mr. Collins looked at the boys. They stared back at him.

  “It’s an idea,” Mr. Collins said. Then he smiled his own wide smile. “Come with me,” he said. “Let’s see what we can come up with.”

  Aaron stayed where he was. He didn’t want to come up with anything. Tufan must have had the same thought, because he didn’t move either.

  “Be cool, guys,” Mr. Collins said. “We’ll work this out.”

  At that, Tufan grunted. It was an “I don’t believe this” kind of grunt, but he walked off the stage, sweeping Aaron along in front of him. They followed Mr. Collins out of the gym like players cut from the team.

  Back in the classroom, the three of them gathered in front of Mr. Collins’s computer. Tufan slouched in his chair, his arms folded across his chest, his eyebrows knotted.

  Angry, Aaron thought, shifting nervously in his own chair.

  “When Ms. Masilo suggested you could introduce the concert, I figured the three of us could come up with something,” Mr. Collins said. “What do you think?”

  He waited. No one spoke.

  “Come on, guys. Three heads are better than one.”

  Aaron peered at the teacher. He only saw one head.

  “We could make a sign,” Tufan finally offered.

  “We could, but people don’t pay much attention to signs. Can we think of something to say?”

  “People say poems,” Aaron said.

  Tufan snorted. “Not me. I don’t do poetry.”

  “Yeah. I don’t do poetry either,” Aaron said. “Except like…you know…like, There was a man from Nantucket, whose head was stuck in a bucket…”

  Tufan snorted again. “Your head—”

  “A limerick,” Mr. Collins interrupted. “That’s a thought. Although they’re not usually very Christmassy.”

  “Not like The Night Before Christmas,” Aaron said.

  “Now that’s a much better thought. What if you use that as a pattern? You could write an introduction and make the poem a reminder for people to turn off their phones?”

  Aaron sat up straighter. He liked things that rhymed.

  Mr. Collins tugged on his earlobe. “We could start with something like: ’Twas the night of the concert… and the kids were all thrilled…to go on the stage…” He stopped. “We need a rhyme for thrilled.”

  “Filled,” Tufan said.

  “Hilled?” said Aaron.

  “Hilled?” Tufan sneered. “That’s not even a word.”

  “But we’re on the right track,” Mr. Collins said. He repeated the words they already had. “’Twas the night of the concert, and the kids were all thrilled / To go on the stage…”

  “’Cause the chairs all got filled?” Aaron offered.

  “That works,” Mr. Collins said. “At least it’s a beginning. What do you think?”

  Tufan’s lips twitched. “There’s no way I’m standing up to say some stupid poem. Not unless it’s a rap or something.”

  “A rap! That’s a great idea,” Mr. Collins said. “You could make the whole poem a kind of rap, just by changing the rhythm.” He repeated their words, only this time he tapped out a beat on the desk. When he was done, Tufan was sitting up straighter, and Aaron was grinning.

  Mr. Collins typed the words they had into his computer, and after a while they had four lines. They repeated them a few times and made some changes. “There,” he finally said. “That’s the first verse already.”

  ’Twas the night of the concert. The kids were all thrilled,

  To stand on the stage as the chairs quickly filled

  With families who talked and moved all around,

  But once the show started, there wasn’t a sound.

  “Cool,” Aaron said. “We wrote a poem.”

  “A verse,” Tufan corrected. “We wrote a verse.”

  “It’s a beginning,” Mr. Collins said. “Now, do you two think you can work on it together?”

  “No way!” Aaron blurted out. He wanted to say the words before Tufan said something like No way I’m working with this loser. As it turned out, Tufan didn’t say anything.

  Mr. Collins looked sad. “If you want to be in the concert, this might be your only hope, Aaron.”

  Aaron replayed the words only hope in his mind. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I guess. Okay.” And when Tufan didn’t object, they got some paper and pencils and moved to a table at the back of the room.

  At first Aaron twitched every time Tufan moved. But as they added words, changed lines, counted the meters and struggled to find rhymes,
he started to feel a little better.

  “What are you working on?” Ms. Masilo wanted to know when she brought the class back from the gym.

  “The introduction to the concert you asked for,” Mr. Collins said. “It’s still in the early stages.”

  “Can I hear it?” she said.

  Mr. Collins asked Aaron to read it, and he did. When he was done, Ms. Masilo was smiling. The smile looked just like all the others, but there was something about her voice that sounded pleased, excited even.

  “You could add a chorus,” she said. “Something that repeats. The choir could chant that part. And you could add some percussion. A hand drum or tambourine maybe?”

  “I’ll do the drumming,” Tufan said quickly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ms. Masilo said. “That would leave Aaron to do all the talking. He’ll never—”

  “Yes, I will. I can do it. I can,” Aaron interrupted. He looked around, hoping someone would speak up for him.

  Nobody did, but Mr. Collins said, “Give us a chance to work on it. We’ll see what we can do.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Aaron arrived home to find Gran at the living room window. “You’re late,” she said when he walked into the house. “I was beginning to worry.”

  He let his backpack slide from his shoulder and kicked his boots to the mat by the door. “I had to stay in.”

  “Did you finish all your work?” she asked as she helped him off with his coat.

  “Everything. I finished everything.” He waited for her praise. It didn’t come.

  Instead, she said, “Guess what?” Her voice sounded funny. And then she giggled. The sound surprised Aaron. “He’s here,” she went on. “Your dad. He took an early flight. He’s here.”

  Aaron’s mouth opened, but remembering Tufan’s words about looking smarter, he closed it again. “Here? You mean…you mean now?”

  “Well, almost. He called from the airport when his plane landed, but that was awhile ago, so he should be here any minute.” She reached over, pulled off his hat and combed her fingers through his hair. He stood still for that, but when she slid her arm around his shoulder as if she was going to give him a hug, he stepped away.

  Dad? His heart filled his chest, banging with a loud, painful throb. My dad?

  He had expected to feel good when his father came. He had expected to feel excited and happy, but what he felt was…he felt more like…like he couldn’t breathe. “I…,” he said. “I…” And then he took off running, up the stairs, into his room and straight into his closet. Pulling the door closed behind him, he squeezed himself into a corner, where he sat with his head on his knees, his good arm wrapped around them.

  “Aaron!”

  He thought he heard Gran call his name behind the Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! sounds that filled his ears. He knew where that sound came from. That was the sound of his blood pumping through his veins. It drowned out everything except his worry.

  He didn’t know how long he sat at the back of the closet, but after a while the door opened and a man’s body filled the doorway. He wasn’t tall, but he was wide. Wide as a door, Aaron thought. He squinted. All the light in the room came from behind him, so the man’s face stayed dark, shadowed. “Aaron?” he said.

  “Are you? Are you him? Are you my dad?”

  The head nodded. “Yeah. I’m your dad.” He stood, unmoving, silent.

  Aaron knew his father’s voice. He could hear it in his head. He had heard it in his sleep. This is it. This is the voice, he thought. A wave of relief washed over him.

  He waited, remembering Gran’s promise: “When your daddy comes, he’ll give you a hug, and he’ll tickle you like this.” She had told him that a million times when he was little, so he was ready, but his father didn’t move. Aaron wanted to say, You can hug me if you want to, but the shadow stepped away and his father’s voice said, “You wanna come out of there now?”

  “Okay,” Aaron said. But he had been scrunched in the corner of his closet for so long that his right leg had gone to sleep, and when he tried to stand, it began to tingle as if ants were dancing under his skin. He took a step forward, but when he put weight on his leg, it buckled and he lurched to one side. He had to grab for the doorframe to keep from falling. The tingling grew worse. He lifted his foot, bent his knee and shook his leg to make it stop. I look like a dog getting ready to pee, he thought. That made him laugh. Having started, he couldn’t stop. His laughter grew. It came out in short, high-pitched bursts with snorts every time he had to breathe. He’ll think I’m weird, Aaron thought. But even that thought couldn’t stop the laughter.

  His father stood, watching. “Why don’t you come downstairs when you’re ready,” he said. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

  It was awhile before the tingling left Aaron’s leg and he felt ready to go down.

  He stopped on the second step from the top. From there he could see his father’s back filling the living room doorway. He could hear Gran. “He’s been so excited,” she was saying. “He could hardly wait. As soon as you called, he put up a calendar to keep track of the days. You’re all he’s been talking about.”

  “He’s…he’s not what I expected,” his father said.

  “What did you expect?” Gran snapped.

  “I thought…I hoped…He’s up there laughing. He sounds like…”

  “I know what he sounds like.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean…He’s not what I expected,” his father said again.

  “He is what he is,” Gran said. “He’s your son and you’re his father. He’ll need you now if…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Liam,” a new voice said. “Liam. Give it some time. We all need to give each other time.”

  Aaron took a step down. The stair creaked. His father turned and looked up. His lips formed a tight, twisted smile. All the way down, Aaron tried to decide: Was his father happy? Sad? Angry? Worried? None of the expressions he had learned from Karen seemed to fit the look on his dad’s face.

  When he got to the bottom, his father motioned him into the living room. “Aaron,” he said, “I promised you a surprise.”

  There was a woman standing beside Gran’s chair. She was tall, taller than his dad, with straight black hair that hung to her shoulders. But the thing Aaron really noticed was her belly. It stuck out in front of her like she’d swallowed a basketball.

  “Aaron, meet Sophie,” his father said, and he walked over and put his arm around the woman.

  This was his surprise? Aaron stared. How was this woman a surprise?

  The woman stood with her legs apart, her shoulders back. She wasn’t smiling happy, but she wasn’t frowning angry either. He thought she looked nice. Except for her belly.

  “You’re really fat,” he said.

  Gran gasped. “Aaron!” she said.

  But the woman laughed and said, “I sure am. I’m huge.” Her hands moved over the bulge in her middle as his father pulled her closer.

  “You’re growing a baby,” Aaron said.

  “I am. And it’s almost ready to be born. Just two months to go.”

  “You mean…you mean it’ll come out in two months?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh. Is it…Is it too big for natural childbirth?”

  Gran’s jaw dropped. “What kind of question is that?” she asked.

  “I was reading. In a book. It said some mothers have to have a…a Caesar section, if maybe the baby’s head is too big. Is your baby’s head too big?”

  “This baby will be just fine,” the woman said. “And if it needs a Caesarean section, the doctors will take care of it.” She smiled at his dad, and he smiled back.

  Aaron nodded. “How are you a surprise?” he finally asked.

  “It seems that I’m more of a shock than a surprise. Your father should have told both of you about me ages ago.” And this time when she looked at his dad, Aaron saw her eyebrows go way up. “Liam?” she said.

  “Sophie is my wife,” his fat
her said. “She’ll be your mother, Aaron.”

  Aaron looked at Sophie. She did look nice, but he couldn’t stop his words. “Gran’s my mother,” he said.

  Sophie smiled. “Yes, she is,” she said softly. Aaron decided it was a real smile, so he smiled back. When she came toward him, he stood, ruler straight, and tried not to twitch as her arms reached out and wrapped around his shoulders. He was afraid to move. Should he hug her back? He decided that wouldn’t be a good idea. Not with her belly sticking out like that. What if he hugged too hard and squished the baby inside?

  NINETEEN

  The first thing Aaron showed his dad was the toad. “Can you see it? Can you? It’s hiding. You have to look really hard. There. See it?” Aaron pointed out the toad’s new hiding spot under the piece of bark.

  His dad bent and peered into the vivarium. “Oh, yeah. There it is,” he said. “Great camouflage. If you hadn’t told me, I don’t think I would have noticed him. What does he eat?”

  “Worms. Do ya wanna see?” Not waiting for an answer, Aaron opened the worm jar and scooped out a fat worm. It wasn’t easy with one hand, but he’d had lots of practice.

  “Can you lift the lid of the tank, please,” he asked, remembering to use his best manners.

  While his dad lifted the screen cover of the vivarium, Aaron dropped in the worm. They both bent to watch.

  “M-m-m-m-m. Yummy,” his father said, rubbing his own stomach as the worm disappeared into the toad’s wide mouth. “Now I’m getting hungry.” He laughed. “I wonder what we’re getting for dinner.”

  He’s making a joke, Aaron thought, so he laughed too. The sound came out as a loud bark. Remembering Jeremy’s warning, he swallowed the rest.

  “Gran said she’d make spaghetti. She said that used to be your favorite.”

  “Still is,” his dad said as he walked to the door. He stopped there, and Aaron, who was replacing the wire mesh over the toad’s home, glanced over and saw him stare at the pages pinned up beside the November calendar.