“Charlie, leave him alone. Hector, tell Charlie to give him that back,” Tony attempted.

  Hector looked a little embarrassed. “You can’t really take his stuff, Charlie,” he said.

  “I’ll take whatever I want,” Charlie said.

  “He’ll take whatever he wants,” the girl echoed in a high-pitched, mocking voice.

  “You better watch out, Rebecca!” Tony said, her face red with fury.

  Tony stared at Rebecca, Danny struggled against Todd, and Todd stared into space like a character in a TV show whose lines were finished.

  “What is going on here?”

  A deep, furious voice.

  Everyone turned. One of the teachers was looking at them. Danny opened his mouth to speak, then checked himself, remembering that he was still on school grounds.

  “What is going on here?!” the teacher demanded again.

  None of the other kids felt that they could speak either.

  “You can talk!” the teacher said. He was an older man with a red beard and a crumpled checked suit.

  “Sir, we’re not allowed to talk to you; that would be triangulating,” Rebecca said.

  The teacher looked furious. “You! Let him go,” he said to Todd.

  Todd released Danny’s arms.

  “Now, you. What’s your name?” the teacher asked Danny.

  “Danny Lopez,” Danny said. “I’m new.”

  “What’s going on here, Danny?” the teacher asked.

  “Nothing. We were playing,” Danny muttered.

  “Yeah, we were just playing,” Rebecca said in that annoying singsong voice that would have gotten her a slap in the face if she’d been at Grover Cleveland.

  “Come on, Danny, let’s go,” Tony said, and led him away from the others.

  They exited through the rear gate, and when they were clear of the school and halfway up Alameda she stopped and looked at him.

  “Are you OK?” she asked.

  Danny kept walking and she ran to catch up. “Are you OK?” she asked again.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Don’t worry about those guys. Hector and Charlie think they’re tough, but they’re not.”

  “Hector and Charlie are the ones from our class?”

  “Yeah. Todd’s from 8B and Rebecca’s from 8A. Tom’s been keeping an eye on them, don’t worry … we’re on top of it. We think there’s about a dozen of them altogether. They’ve got a secret club. It’s so lame. We think Charlie’s running it.”

  “Charlie’s the blond one?”

  “Yeah. He thinks he’s so handsome. I guess he is, in a cartoony kind of way, like Fred from Scooby-Doo or something.”

  “They’re in a secret club?”

  “Yeah, can you imagine? Lame City. You can see them on the playground acting all dorky. They have their own sign language. Sign language … I mean, like, how sad can you get? We’re miles ahead of them.”

  “How many are in your secret group?” Danny said, with a slight mocking edge to his voice.

  “Not as many as them, but we’re more exclusive. There’s me and Tom, and Olivia Quintera and Cooper Reid and you, and I think Carol Brennan left. She and Tom fell out or something. I don’t know about her.”

  “But haven’t I screwed it up for you guys now? Now they’ve got the pager; they’ll be able to read your texts. Your whole communication system is ruined.”

  Tony laughed. “No, they won’t be able to do anything. I’ll call Tom tonight and he’ll sync a different encryption system and when they try to read our texts tomorrow they’ll just get junk. Might even be funny to watch them.”

  Tony smiled and gave him a little punch on the shoulder.

  She wanted Danny to laugh, but he didn’t feel like laughing. This was all a bit much for him to take in—secret societies with different ways of communicating, bullies, reading programs, silence, scripts, gloves, and all this on his first day. His head was pounding and he felt humiliated. He’d been roughed up in front of two girls.

  He blinked hard. Oh no. He actually felt like he was going to cry.

  All he wanted to do was get away. From school, from Tony, from Colorado.

  She was talking. Her lips were moving, but the drumming in his head was so loud he didn’t hear what she was saying.

  He rubbed his eyes, took a deep breath. This was not the time to ride the pity pony. He couldn’t run away—they both took the same route home—he had to keep it together until he got to the house. Then he could go to his room, close the door …

  Tony continued with her explanation of whatever it was she was explaining. “There’s only six of us, and we’re all in 9B. We don’t have anyone in grade eight or seven, but their club is mostly grades seven and eight. Olivia thinks—”

  “Who’s Olivia?”

  “She was sitting behind you.”

  “I didn’t notice her. I was afraid to look back.”

  Tony laughed, and her laugh made him feel a little better. “Oh, you can look back. Miss Benson—her name’s Laura, by the way—she only pretends to follow along in the book; she’s really reading a magazine behind her desk. Usually People.”

  “So who was that big red-shirt guy?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about him. He’s OK. His dad’s a janitor at the MFC.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Metropolitan Faith Cathedral. It’s the big church around here. My parents go there too. Actually, I go there with them. Lots of people do. My dad’s an elder. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about any of it.”

  “What about those other kids?”

  “Hector’s OK, really. Don’t stress about him. Not as smart as Tom. He’s OK. But Charlie … He thinks he’s made of awesome. He’s from South Carolina or somewhere originally. Transferred here from Citadel Prep last term. By the way, if you want to get on his nerves, ask him what his dad does.”

  “What does his dad do?”

  Tony grinned. “He runs the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman tours of Colorado Springs. Drives people around in the bus.”

  “Dr. what?”

  “It was a show from the nineties. They filmed in L.A., I guess, but it takes place here, so a lot of tourists come out for it. Especially from Japan. It’s kind of embarrassing, really, because there’s nothing to see. You know?”

  They turned right on Manitou Road. The houses thinned out there and the sidewalk became narrow. Pinecones and needles crunched under their feet.

  “We used to go out. Charlie and me. Not anymore. I’m so over him,” Tony said, and continued to disprove this by talking about Charlie until Manitou Road bent to the left and the houses began again.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Tony asked.

  There was a work crew up ahead. Tony was looking at them in fascination, and as she did so Danny examined her. Her neck had a little mole on it just beneath her chin and her eyes had a strange aquamarine tinge to the irises. She caught him looking. He coughed. “So what are you saying? There’s several secret clubs or something?”

  “Oh yeah, about four or five. Most of them are stupid, but the SSU is pretty serious. Tom thinks—”

  “Danny! Danny, over here!”

  “There’s someone calling you,” Tony said.

  It was Walt. He was standing next to a gang of six men in orange overalls, each of whom had a chain running between his ankles. The men were being watched by a prison guard in a cowboy hat who was holding a pump-action shotgun across his body and blowing bubblegum bubbles.

  “Danny, over here!” Walt called again. Bob was with him, operating some kind of earth-pounding machine. Bob was also wearing a pair of orange overalls. He turned the machine off when he saw Danny.

  “You better go over,” Tony said.

  “You go home … I’ll talk to you later,” Danny muttered quickly.

  “No, I’d like to meet your dad,” Tony said breezily.

  “No, just go home, please,” Danny insisted, but Tony was having none of it. She walked across the road, and Danny reluctantly followed.

  Walt introduced himself, Bob, and the members of his work crew. The guard with the shotgun didn’t seem to care that all the men had downed their tools to chat.

  “This is Vern,” Walt said, and Vern touched two fingers to his cowboy hat.

  “Wow, so this is a real chain gang,” Tony said, impressed.

  Bob laughed. “Yup, I guess, technically speaking, it is, although we’re not chained together; that would make it too hard to work.”

  “Pretty rad,” Tony said.

  “What do you do, young lady?” Bob asked. The sun had brought out Bob’s orange freckles and he didn’t look much like a hardened con.

  She grinned. “I’m at junior high!”

  “Junior high? I felt sure you were a doctor or a lawyer or something,” Bob said.

  “No, not yet, but my dad works at NORAD.”

  “Really? NORAD? He ever see any UFOs? I hear they track lots of UFOs there all the time,” Bob said.

  “He’s not allowed to talk about it,” Tony said happily.

  “You’re one of the prisoners?” Danny asked Bob, feeling both horrified and also a little bit impressed. He’d thought Bob was a warden or a foreman or something.

  “Yup,” Bob said.

  “Is this your boy, Walt?” one of the other convicts asked. A big guy with a beard and a New York accent.

  “Yes, this is my son, Danny,” Walt replied.

  “No, I’m not,” Danny muttered inaudibly.

  “So, Danny, how was your first day at school?” Walt asked.

  By now Danny’s cheeks were burning. His father worked with criminals. Tony’s father worked at NORAD. The criminals were talking to Tony. There was a man guarding them with a shotgun.

  “It was OK,” Danny said.

  “I remember my first day at school—many first days at many schools—it’s always a bitch … oh, ’scuse my French, young lady,” Bob said.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Tony said.

  “You’re in Danny’s class?” Walt asked.

  “Yes, we live opposite you,” Tony said.

  Walt turned to Bob. “These kids are at Cobalt Junior High. It’s a charter school, supposed to be one of the best in the country,” he said with pride.

  Bob nodded. “Yeah, I know the place … or rather, I know of it. I’ve never actually been to Colorado Springs, despite living here for the last five years,” Bob said, and winked at them.

  “How do you know about it?” Tony asked.

  “There’s still a gigantic Tesla coil in there, isn’t there? One of the biggest in the country. I don’t think they’ve taken it out,” Bob said.

  “Oh, that thing. Yeah, it’s still there in the science room. It looks weird. Our science teacher, Mr. Burke, loves it,” Tony said.

  “What’s a Tesla coil?” one of the other men asked.

  “Uh, we should probably be heading on now. We’ve got Oliver Twist to read and I’m real excited to see if he manages to get more gruel,” Danny said.

  Walt nodded. “Oh yeah, of course, homework … and actually, you know, we should be getting back to it, right, Vern?”

  “I suppose so,” Vern said unenthusiastically.

  The men nodded and grunted in agreement.

  “Bye!” Bob and Walt said almost simultaneously.

  “Be careful on the roads,” Walt said.

  “Be better than careful,” Bob said. “Be smart.”

  “Bye,” Tony replied.

  Danny said nothing. He led Tony quickly back to the sidewalk as the sound of pneumatic machines shattered the quiet of the Colorado day.

  “That was cool seeing your dad like that,” Tony said.

  “Uh-huh,” Danny muttered.

  “I liked that Bob guy, he was funny,” Tony said.

  “Was he?” Danny said, and lapsed into silence for the rest of the walk home.

  When they came to Johnson Close, their own little cul-de-sac, Tony sensed that Danny wanted to be by himself. He’d seemed OK, but now she wondered if she’d done the right thing, telling Tom to let him into the Watchers. Danny was a bit moody and they couldn’t kick him out now that he’d taken one for the team at the hands of Charlie and Todd. But then again, maybe it was just first-day blues.

  She said good-bye to him and walked up her garden path.

  “Bye,” Danny said quietly.

  He hadn’t meant to be weird. He’d been looking at the road, thinking.

  Now that he could evaluate the blacktop, he saw that the sidewalks weren’t great but the roads were new and freshly laid.

  He rummaged in his pocket, found the front-door key, and went inside his house.

  He knew there was homework, but he didn’t feel like homework. His computer hadn’t arrived yet, nor his Xbox. They didn’t even have TV.

  He checked the weather. A slab of gray cloud was covering the entire sky, the ceiling a few hundred feet above his head. It looked like it might snow, but it didn’t matter. He had to get out. He stripped off the awful uniform, pulled on his black jean shorts, his Raiders beanie, his red Converse high-tops, his brown hoodie. He looked at himself in the mirror on the back of the dresser. His bangs were almost covering his brown eyes. He wondered if he was good-looking. He was small and dark. Certainly not up there with the likes of Charlie, but definitely more handsome than that Tom dude.

  “Jeff!” he called, but Jeffrey was sleeping.

  He went upstairs and got Sunflower.

  He took it outside and pulled the beanie low over his eyes.

  “To hell with all of them,” he said, and pushed off.

  He skated downhill from Johnson Close to Manitou Road. His father’s work crew had moved on, so he didn’t have to deliberately ignore them. He flipped his iPod to a ’90s shuffle and heard songs he didn’t know by Pavement and They Might Be Giants.

  He skated a long time. From Manitou Road to Alameda and all the way out of town.

  He skated for miles.

  He skated until he forgot about being roughed up.

  Until he forgot about the chain gang.

  Until he forgot about the school.

  He skated east through Manitou Springs along West Colorado Avenue. He skated over the Monument Valley Freeway and Fountain Creek. He skated deep into the Springs, all the way to the Greyhound terminal on South Weber Street.

  The sidewalks here were wide and they had Starbucks and diners and coffee shops and pubs, but he kept going east on Pikes Peak Avenue past a school for the blind and a big park that had a massive memorial to all the fallen firefighters of America. He kept going east past a couple of charter schools and then, because it was getting dark, he changed direction and went north and west, past the US Olympic Training Center and finally back downtown to the Greyhound bus depot.

  Light snow was falling now and a bus was idling in the parking lot with a sign above the driver’s seat that said LOS ANGELES.

  The driver himself was outside smoking with a couple of passengers, everyone coughing in the cold night air.

  How easy it would be to slip onboard.

  To take a seat at the back, to sit there with his beanie pulled down, pretending to sleep. In seven or eight hours they’d be in Nevada or Arizona. Either would be fine. And maybe he could make it undiscovered all the way to the terminal in downtown L.A.

  He thought about it for a moment. Aunt Ines would take him in. He’d talk to her in Spanish about the school, about the other kids, about the silence, the gloves. She’d be freaked. She’d look after him. She’d give him rice and beans, and his cousins Marco and Lucien would show him the gang signs and teach him to read the graffiti.

  All he had to do was hop aboard.

  He walked to the steps. Looked inside the bus. A dozen empty seats. One right at the back.

  But after a full minute’s hesitation, he shook his head.

  No, it wouldn’t do.

  His mother would be scared out of her mind.

  Even Walt would be upset.

  And anyway, that’s what a coward did—quitting school after one day because a couple of punk kids were mean to him.

  The driver and the other passengers came back from their smoke break and got on board. The Greyhound’s door closed with a pneumatic hiss.

  Danny’s cell phone rang. He was surprised. He didn’t even know it worked in Colorado.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you, Danny?” his mom asked, worried.

  “I skated to Colorado Springs.”

  “That must be ten miles away! Danny, what were you thinking?”

  “It’s downhill and I wanted to see it.”

  “How will you get home? It’s pitch-black out.”

  “I’ll skate home, I’ll be fine.”

  “Where are you, exactly? Your dad and I will pick you up.”

  “No, don’t do that.”

  “It’s snowing. How will you even skate in the snow?”

  “Don’t fuss. I’ll be fine.”

  “Where are you? Tell me exactly where you are.”

  Danny sighed. It actually would be cool if his mother came for him. He was already freezing and it was uphill the whole way back.

  The Greyhound bus pulled out, growling like a wounded dinosaur.

  “I’m close to the bus station,” Danny said. “The Greyhound bus station. If you take Colorado Avenue all the way in, I’ll see you.”

  “We’ll look it up on Google Maps. Wait for us.”

  He hung up and waited. Between the snow clouds, stars hung low in the pollution-free Colorado sky except in that patch of night occupied by the void of Pikes Peak.

  It was quiet. The streets were empty. The stores were all closed. He felt lonely. He hadn’t seen Jeffrey all day. Wasn’t seeing anyone, ‘cept for a random kid on a bike.

  He picked up his board and hugged it.

  The board was his transport but also his shield.

  “Sunflower,” he said to himself.

  He shivered.

  “The shorts were probably a mistake,” he muttered to the streetlamps and the crescent moon.

  He yawned.

  The boy watching him yawned too.

  It had been hard trailing Danny all the way from Cobalt and halfway around the Springs. Boring, too. Just for a minute there he’d thought that Danny was going to jump on the Greyhound and take it wherever it was going. (Wouldn’t be the first kid who attempted to run away from home after freshman day at CJHCS.) But he hadn’t. He just called someone on his phone instead.