At dinner with Laurence’s parents (super-garlicky pasta), Patricia talked a good game about how she and Laurence had gone rock climbing and they had even seen a fox, up close. She almost said the fox ate out of Laurence’s hand, but she didn’t want to oversell. Laurence’s parents were overjoyed and startled to hear how many trees Laurence had been up—neither of them looked like they’d hiked in years, but they had some hang-up about Laurence spending too much time sitting at his computer instead of filling his lungs. “So glad Laurence has a friend,” said his mom, who wore cat eye glasses and had her curls dyed an obscene shade of red. Laurence’s dad, who was morose and bald except for one brown tuft, nodded and offered Patricia more garlic bread with both hands. Laurence’s family lived in a dingy subdivision in an ugly cul-de-sac, and all the furniture and appliances were old. You could see through the carpet to the cinder floor.

Patricia and Laurence started spending time together, even when she wasn’t vouching for his outdoorsiness. They sat next to each other on the bus, on a field trip to the Cannery Museum, which was a whole facility devoted to cans. And every time they hung out, Laurence showed her another weird device—like, he had built a ray gun that would make you sleepy if he aimed it at you for half an hour. He hid it under the table at school and tested it on Mr. Knight, the Social Studies teacher, who did start yawning right before the bell.

One day in English class, Ms. Dodd asked Patricia to get up and talk about William Saroyan—no, wait, just to recite William Saroyan from memory. She stumbled over the gravel road of words about the insects who live in fruit, until she noticed a light shining in her eye, blinding her, but only on the right side. With her left eye, she saw the wall of bored faces, drawing not enough entertainment at her discomfort, and then she found the source of the dazzling blue-green beam: Laurence had something in his hand. Like a pointer.

“I—I have a headache,” Patricia said. She was excused.

In the hallway during Passing Period, she yanked Laurence away from the drinking fountain and demanded to know what the hell that had been.

“Retinal teleprompter,” Laurence gasped, looking actually scared of her. Nobody had ever been scared of Patricia. “Still not quite perfected. If it had worked, it would have projected the words directly onto your eye.”

Patricia felt actually scandalized at this. “Oh. But isn’t that cheating?”

“Yes, because memorizing the speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes will prepare you for life as an adult.” Laurence rolled his eyes and walked away.

Laurence wasn’t sitting around feeling sorry for himself, he was making things. She had never met anyone like him before. And meanwhile, what could Patricia do with her so-called magic powers? Nothing. She was totally useless.

4

LAURENCE’S PARENTS DECIDED Patricia was his girlfriend, and they wouldn’t hear reason. They kept offering to chaperone the two kids to school dances, or to drive them to and from “dates.” They wouldn’t shut up about it.