And a grinding noise.

  Moving now. Moving across the room, through the light, and toward the noise.

  “Wait your turn,” a voice says sternly.

  In the center of the light is a round shape, and in the center of that round shape is a dark hole.

  Moving out of the light and into darkness again, into the dark hole, filled with a strong, musty odor. His head is firmly caught in the darkness.

  Tight.

  Uncomfortable.

  He begins to panic.

  And the grinding noise starts once again. Loud, all around him—around his head, grinding and slicing.

  Spinning blades.

  Sharp gnashing gears, grinding against each other—they slice deep into him, cutting away. He screams, but no one can hear over the grinding. Help me! Help me, please! Something’s gone wrong!

  If someone listens, someone has to hear.

  I’m alive!

  If someone knows, someone has to care.

  But the slicing, gnashing knives carve deep, taking pieces of him away forever. Cruel. Unfeeling. Until all that is left of his head is a dark pinpoint. His soft, sensitive core, once protected, is now exposed to the world.

  Out of the darkness, into the light again, moving through the air, which painfully blows across the pale open wound.

  The soft hand that gave him so much warmth before now holds him too tightly and flips him upside down. His aching face is pressed against a rough, flat surface and scraped against it until bits of him are left behind, silver-gray traces of his life draining away onto the clean coarse surface.

  This can’t be it! This can’t be my purpose! he screams. I am meant for more! Much, much more! Doesn’t anyone hear me?

  But all that can be heard of his screaming is a gentle hissssssss as the little girl presses his face to the rough page and writes:

  How I Spent My Summer Vacation

  Fear-for-All

  The headmistress had eyes that didn’t quite focus on yours. That was the thing Seth first noticed. Dr. Stillwell was looking straight at him, but wasn’t. It was as if her focus was off by just a few inches, like she was looking at a point somewhere in the middle of his brain.

  “If you’re trying to intimidate me, don’t bother,” Seth said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  The tight-skinned, tight-lipped woman had a smile like a clean slice of a bloodless wound. “Then what are you afraid of?”

  “Nothing,” he answered, without hesitation. He’d had therapists asking him that question for years, and the answer never changed. Of course, no one believed him. Everyone was always so sure he was posturing, concealing some deep-seated fear he was afraid to utter. They could not accept the possibility of someone who was afraid of nothing. Not pain, not death, not retribution for his actions. Perhaps the very concept of him frightened them.

  “What I want to know is why you accepted me into this school.”

  The bloodless grin never left Dr. Stillwell’s face. “Why? Don’t you feel you deserve to attend Oakheart Academy?”

  “No, I don’t. My grades are lousy, my attitude stinks, I’ve already been thrown out of two other schools—and yet you’ve given me a full scholarship. Why?”

  “Let’s have a look at your record, shall we?” She flipped open a fat folder on her desk. “Last year you took an acrophobic student to the roof of your school and forced him to look down from the edge.”

  “Yeah,” Seth said, shifting in his seat. “I got expelled for that.”

  She flipped a page. “Six months ago you hit the stop button in an elevator when you found out the woman next to you was claustrophobic.”

  “Yeah. She wasn’t happy.”

  “And we have a letter from one Krysta Coats claiming you terrorized her by taking her on a date to the circus.”

  “C’mon—it was just the circus.”

  “Did you know she was coulrophobic?”

  “Afraid of clowns?” Seth shrugged. “Yeah, I knew.”

  The headmistress closed the folder gently. “People believe you did these things to be cruel. That you’re a horrible, evil human being.” She paused to let it sink in. “Are you?”

  Seth looked away from her, hating her eyes. They were like laser beams converging on some spot in his brain, burning it away like you might burn away a tumor. Was he evil? Was he cruel? Certainly those things he had done were cruel—yet at the time, they didn’t feel so.

  “Why did you do those things?” the headmistress demanded.

  “I don’t know.” he answered. But that wasn’t entirely true. There was a part of him that did know, but only in the most glancing of ways. The way a ship’s lookout knew the iceberg.

  “I did it because I wanted to… understand.” It was the only way he could put the feeling into words. That compulsion he felt to go to the roof, or to stop that elevator, or to coldly observe his screaming date there in the front row as the wire-haired, white-faced clown came right up to her, with that horrible painted smile. He had never jumped from an unexpected fright. He had never experienced terror. How could he help but find himself drawn to those who did? And in the end, his date stopped screaming, didn’t she? So maybe he had actually done something good. Wasn’t that possible?

  When Seth met the headmistress’s eyes again, she seemed very satisfied with herself. And with him as well.

  “So, did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “You said you wanted to understand. Did you?”

  Seth thought back to the instances when he had sparked another’s fear. Did he understand it? Perhaps for an instant, when their fear was so overpowering it surrounded them both. For just the tiniest instant in time he could wrap it around him like a cloak, almost feeling it—but it would only surround him, never penetrating. Then it would dissolve so quickly he could never be sure if he had felt anything at all.

  “No,” he told her. It was easier than trying to explain. Yet somehow he felt she needed no explanation.

  “You never answered my question,” Seth said, beginning to lose his limited patience. “If I’m such a bad seed, then why am I here?”

  The headmistress slowly crossed her fingers before her. Her interlaced hands looked like a tarantula patiently awaiting its prey.

  “You’re here because you possess a quality that we here at Oakheart value above all else.”

  “What?”

  And then she leaned forward and whispered so low it was just at the threshold of hearing, but with such intensity, it could have knocked Seth out of his chair.

  “Fearlessness…”

  * * *

  His roommate was a football player. A big kid. The kind of guy who couldn’t tolerate weird, weaselly kids like Seth.

  “That’s your side of the room,” his roommate told him, on that first day, as if it wasn’t obvious. “Hope you like country music, ’cause I play it all the time.”

  “Country’s okay,” Seth said. “if you can put up with some hip-hop.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Only after the music issue was settled did his roommate introduce himself. “I’m Wyatt,” he said. “Wyatt Van der Meek.”

  “Van der Meek,” Seth repeated. “Easy to remember. Just like that senator.”

  “Yeah,” said Wyatt. “He’s my dad.”

  Seth snapped his eyes up, to check if Wyatt was kidding, but he wasn’t.

  “A lot of bigwigs send their ‘high-needs’ kids to this school,” said Wyatt.

  “ ‘High needs’? Like ‘special needs’?”

  “Nah, special needs is learning disabilities and stuff like that,” said Wyatt. “High needs is… well… other stuff.”

  Seth would have asked what other stuff he meant, but he could tell Wyatt wasn’t gonna go there.

  He began to unpack his suitcase, and then he realized Wyatt was staring at him. It annoyed him, so he said, “You wanna help me unpack?”

  “No, that’s okay,” said Wyatt. “So, you’re the one they’ve been talking about? The one who’s getting a free ride?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that Dr. Stillwell keeps telling us we gotta treat you good. She says you’re very important to all of us.”

  Seth couldn’t figure out why he’d be important to anyone, least of all to a senator’s kid. He pulled back his linens to make his bed, and there between the sheets sat a cockroach. A big one, like the kind you get at the end of summer. Seth laughed. “Hey, Wyatt—you think this roach knows he’s going to one of the most exclusive schools in the country?”

  But Wyatt wasn’t answering. Seth turned to see his roommate backed into the corner of his bed, hands spread out against the wall—his jaw locked and eyes peeled so far back it was as if he had no eyelids.

  “S-st-step on it!” Wyatt hissed. “K-ki-kill it. Kill it now. Now, now, now.”

  His breath came in such short, tight bursts, Seth could swear the kid was having a heart attack. He had seen this look before. He had seen it in an elevator. He had seen it on a rooftop. He had seen it at the Greatest Show on Earth.

  “Ki-ki-kill it. Pleeeeeheeheese…”

  Seth looked down at the roach. It wasn’t moving very quickly to escape, probably because it was so fat.

  “Kill it… Pleeeease… I’m entomophobic. I have a fear of bugs—you have to kill it!”

  “What, this?” Seth picked up the roach and took a step toward Wyatt with the roach in his upturned palm. Wyatt gasped and pressed deeper into the corner. If he could, Seth knew he would disappear right into that corner.

  “C’mon, it’s just a cockroach.” Seth took one step closer.

  Wyatt was sweating. “No. Don’t!”

  Seth took another step, and Wyatt let loose a wail of hopelessness.

  For the longest moment Seth just stood there. The urge to hold that stupid bug right up to Wyatt’s face was overwhelming. The guy’s terror was so intense, so out of control, and yet Seth couldn’t feel it. He could see it. He could smell the fear, but not feel it. If his fear becomes strong enough, I will, said a little voice deep in Seth’s mind. Bring that bug to him, set it on the tip of his nose. Make his terror so powerful that some of it will sink into me, too. Then I’ll feel it. Then I’ll know.

  Seth closed his eyes. No. He wouldn’t do it. If only because Wyatt was his roommate and he had to deal with him all year. Instead Seth fought down that irresistible urge to cultivate Wyatt’s fear, and hurled the roach out of the window.

  Wyatt relaxed immediately. A breeze blew through the window. It was as if the room itself was breathing a sigh of relief.

  “Thanks, man,” Wyatt said. “Thanks. Really. Thanks.”

  Then he reached out and grabbed Seth’s arm. Seth didn’t know what it was, but there was something weird about that moment. It made all the hairs on his arm stand on end.

  He pulled away from Wyatt’s grip. “No problem.”

  * * *

  Seth very quickly came to understand exactly what Wyatt had meant by “high-needs.”

  At lunch, Wyatt introduced him to a table full of other students. Genevieve was the daughter of a software billionaire. Mauricio’s mother was the lieutenant governor, and although no one knew what Kierth’s parents did, the family was rumored to be “richer than God on Good Friday” as Wyatt put it. Everything seemed fine, until Seth got up to get a knife to cut his steak. Wyatt grabbed him by the wrist, pulled him back down, and quietly said, “Don’t.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just don’t.”

  As Seth tried to process this strange request, he noticed that no one at the table had steak knives—or any knives, for that matter. There were no forks, either. Only spoons—and plastic ones at that. Then, when Seth looked around, he saw that every other table had kids eating with silverware, not cheap cafeteria stuff either, but real, polished silver—the kind his mother kept locked away in the china hutch. At his table, however, the kids were picking up the steak with their hands and biting into it.

  Seth smirked. “What’s the problem? You guys werewolves or something?”

  They just looked at him blankly, as if maybe they really were.

  “I mean—do you have a problem with silver? You know—silver bullets, silverware?”

  They looked at each other, then looked away as if Seth had said something unspeakable. Finally Wyatt spoke up. “Genevieve has belonephobia.”

  “Fear of sharp objects,” Genevieve explained. “Knives, forks, and scissors, mostly.”

  Seth let out a single guffaw of laughter. He hadn’t meant to, it just came out.

  Genevieve narrowed her eyes. “You think that’s funny?”

  Seth looked at those angry eyes and felt himself getting angry right back. “I don’t know. Maybe. Don’t you think it’s funny?”

  “Hey, he’s new!” said Wyatt, jumping in. “Give him a break.”

  “The truth is,” said Kierth, “we’ve all got some phobia.”

  “Everyone at the table?” said Seth.

  “No,” Kierth answered. “Everyone at the school. That’s why we’re here. That’s Oakheart’s specialty.”

  “You mean, you didn’t know?” said Genevieve, as if she felt sorry for him now.

  Seth looked around at the other tables. There were no signs of anything unusual, but then a phobia wasn’t really something you wore on your sleeve. It was very personal. Very hidden. That is, until the moment the fear took over.

  “I have catoptrophobia,” whispered Mauricio. “That’s a fear of mirrors.”

  Then Kierth pointed to himself almost as a matter of pride. “I’m afraid of numbers divisible by three,” he said. “They don’t even have a name for that!”

  Seth just gaped at him.

  “It’s true. If there were six people at this table, I would have to leave.”

  Seth found himself stuttering, “B-but that’s ridiculous! It doesn’t even make sense.”

  Kierth shrugged. “Of course it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It’s irrational. A phobia is an irrational fear.”

  “If it made sense,” said Genevieve, a little bit of anger still in her voice, “we’d be able to do something about it, wouldn’t we?”

  “So how about you?” Mauricio asked. “What are you afraid of?”

  There it was. That question again. He was getting so tired of that question.

  “Nothing.”

  “He’s lying,” snapped Genevieve. “Everyone’s here for a reason.”

  Seth didn’t answer her. Instead he looked down at his steak, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the Swiss Army knife he always carried. Usually he just used it to clip his nails. Today it would serve another function.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” Genevieve asked, her voice already beginning to tremble.

  “What does it look like? I’m cutting my meat.” And then he pulled out the knife, plunging it into the meat.

  The reaction was instantaneous. Genevieve stood up so quickly, her chair flew out behind her, her hands started to shake uncontrollably, and she let loose a banshee screech that brought silence to the rest of the dining room. She tried to look away, but her eyes were glued on that knife.

  The others got up to help her. Wyatt reached over and took the knife away, and Genevieve just about collapsed in Kierth’s and Mauricio’s arms once it was out of sight.

  “You’re an asshole,” Wyatt said, and slipped the knife into his own pocket, to make sure Seth didn’t try it again. Silence still ruled the room, and Seth caught the eyes of the headmistress glaring down at him from the faculty table. No, not glaring… studying.

  Then Genevieve strode over to him, pulled her hand way back, and slapped him so hard across the face, his head practically spun around….

  And in the instant that her palm touched his face, he felt something. More than just the sting of the slap, it was something intense and dark. It brought gooseflesh rising all over his body, just like Wyatt’s touch had earlier. He couldn’t explain it—but it was a feeling he remembered long after the sting of the slap was gone.

  * * *

  Seth sat alone at dinner, marveling at how quickly he’d been able to alienate himself from these kids. Why did he always do that? He chuckled bitterly to himself, wondering if perhaps he had a phobia after all. A fear of friendship. What would that be called? he wondered. Comradophobia? Amigophobia? Seth supposed there were as many phobias as there were things in the world to be afraid of. Still, he knew that a fear of friendship was not his problem.

  It was embarrassing to have a table all to himself in the midst of a crowded dining hall, so he tried not to meet anyone’s eyes. Still, there were some things he couldn’t help but notice. Like the way Dr. Stillwell watched him from the faculty table. Or the way his roommate worked the room, whispering to other students and pointing at Seth. Or the way Genevieve was eating a thick lamb chop with a knife and fork.

  Seth had chosen a hamburger tonight. He couldn’t quite say why.

  * * *

  “I want out of here.” Seth paced across the fancy Persian carpets of Dr. Stillwell’s huge office. “I don’t care if it’s free. I don’t even care if the next stop is juvie—I want out.”

  Dr. Stillwell sat calmly in her high-backed leather chair, studying him, always studying him. The headmistress seemed neither surprised nor bothered, which only enraged Seth more.

  “Call my parents,” Seth demanded. “I want you to call them now.”

  But she did not lift a finger to pick up her phone.

  “Tell me, Seth,” she said calmly, “in your opinion, what is the opposite of fear?”

  “Why are you asking such a stupid question? I don’t want to answer your questions.”

  “If you want to go home, you must answer my questions, stupid or not.”

  Seth pounded his fist on the desk. Dr. Stillwell didn’t even flinch. “Fine. The opposite of fear is bravery. Are you happy?”

  Dr. Stillwell shook her head. “That’s a common misconception,” she told him. “Bravery is a reaction to fear. Fight or flight. Those are the two reactions to a fearful situation. Those who fight are called brave,” she said. “Or foolhardy, depending on the outcome.”