Laurence wondered for a moment what would happen to Patricia. She already felt like a fragment of an old forgotten life.

Peterbitter came and screamed at Dickers for letting Laurence use the computer lab, since he was a cyberterrorist. Laurence spent the next two and a half hours before his parents arrived in a small windowless room with a single couch and a pile of school brochures printed on way-too-thick cheap card stock. Then Laurence was marched out to his parents’ car, with an upperclassman at each elbow. He got in the backseat. It felt like a year since he’d seen his parents.

“Well,” said Laurence’s mom. “You’ve made yourself notorious. I don’t know how we’re going to be able to show our faces anywhere.”

Laurence didn’t say anything. Laurence’s dad pulled them out of the school driveway, jerking the wheel so hard he nearly took out the flagpole. People jeered from the parade ground, or maybe that was another drill. The driveway turned into a gravel road through a gray forest. Laurence’s parents talked about the scandal of Patricia’s disappearance and her assault on Mr. Rose, who had also gone missing now. By the time the car was pulling off the country road and onto the highway, Laurence had fallen asleep in the backseat, listening to his parents freak out.

Book Three

BOOK THREE

Chapter 16

16

OTHER CITIES HAD gargoyles or statues watching over them. San Francisco had scare owls. They stood guard along the city’s rooftops, hunched over bright ornate designs that were washed out by waves of fog. These wooden creatures bore witness to every crime and act of charity on the streets without changing their somber expressions. Their original purpose of frightening pigeons had ended in failure, but they still managed to startle the occasional human. Mostly, they were a friendly presence in the night.

This particular evening, a giant yellow moon crested over a clear warm sky, so every fixture, the owls included, was floodlit like a carnival on its last night in town, and moon-drunk roars came from every corner. A perfect night to go out and make some dirty magic.

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