Mandy had just finished roasting the duck from 4 Cheever Place apartment 2A’s Farm to Front Door box. It was a little burned on the bottom and the kitchen smelled like sizzling hair because she’d singed her arm hair removing the duck from the oven, but still. Who would have thought she’d ever manage to cook a whole duck?

Now it was time to toss the shaved beets and Jerusalem artichokes in their sesame oil and ginger vinaigrette dressing and add a sprinkling of chopped peanuts and scallions for garnish. There was a single duck egg in the box that Mandy wasn’t sure what to do with. The little illustrated instruction card for the egg seemed to have slipped out the seam of the box and gotten lost.

Her cell phone rang on the kitchen counter. It was a Brooklyn number, possibly Ted’s school. Mandy took the call.

“Mrs. Little? This is Billy from the Brooklyn Strategizer.”

“Oh, hi.” Mandy broke off another morsel of pot cookie and tucked it into her cheek so she could chew while he was talking. Usually she hated it when people called her “Mrs. Little.” That was Stu’s mom’s name, and Stu’s mom was a total c-u-n-t. Mandy’s name was Mandy Marzulli. But she didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, we’ve been having some issues with Ted today. Uh, sometimes we burn scented candles in the bathroom, like for when someone makes a huge stinky doogie?”

Mandy giggled. The guys at the Brooklyn Strategizer were all man-children. They wore sticky-looking T-shirts and never tied their shoelaces and stayed in the store playing Dungeons & Dragons and Settlers of Catan until two in the morning, drinking homemade root beer and eating caramel popcorn. She and Stu had seen them through the Strategizer window walking home from restaurants in her better days.

“Anyway, today Ted took the burning candle out of the bathroom and brought it to a table in back without anyone seeing. He had one of our Jenga sets, which are made of wood, and he was like, torching the pieces, one by one.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“All by himself? Or was it, like, a group of boys?”

“No, just him.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay, we caught him before he burned the building down or injured himself. But I’d like for someone to pick him up now. And I told him he can’t come back.”

“What? Like, ever?” Mandy spat the last bit of cookie into the sink, preparing for a fight.

“Mrs. Little, we have strict rules to avoid chaos. Your son was inciting chaos. This is our protocol.” He sounded like he was quoting a video game.

“I’m sorry,” Mandy snapped, annoyed. “Let me call his dad.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stuart said when she told him the news. “I know what this is about. He was so into the whole playground fire apology story this morning. Fucking pyromaniac assholes.”