Lashon harah—gossip. Disreputable in any society but a grave sin in Jewish Law. Decker said, “Aaron, if Noam is missing, I need to know everything about him. Including the incidents that make him look bad.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Aaron said. His voice cracked. A faint blush rose in his cheeks. “It’s just…Noam has a hard time fitting in. And he can be pretty obnoxious about it sometimes. It’s like he’s either off by himself or bothering me or my friends.” The teenager adjusted his hat. “Then…out of the blue, he’ll be the nicest person in the world for about a week. Do all your chores for you, straighten up your clothes, just be real…nice. But it never lasts long. I can’t figure him out. Honestly, I’ve given up trying.”

Boruch was nodding in agreement.

Decker said, “That sound about right to you?”

“Yes, sir,” Boruch said. “Noam’s always the one who remembers the birthdays, more than Abba and Eema do. But most of the time, he either ignores me or beats me up.” He paused, clearly upset. “Is he in trouble?”

Decker said, “I don’t know, Boruch.” He smiled reassuringly. It was the best he could offer the boy. “Does Noam have any hobbies—baseball-card collecting, stamp collecting? Is he into cars or hot rods?”

The boys shook their heads.

“Does he spend a lot of time riding his bike, playing sports, skateboarding—”

The boys laughed.

“Skateboarding not too big around here?”

“No,” they said in unison.

“Does he play a lot of sports?”

“Not that I know of,” Aaron said.

“Then if he doesn’t play or learn a lot,” Decker said, “if he doesn’t have any hobbies, what does he do with his time?”

Boruch said, “He spends lots of time with the computer.”

“Games?” Decker asked.

Boruch said, “We don’t own any computer games. We use it for school, for our reports. We have a Gemara program that asks us questions. It’s really neat.”

“Noam use that program?” Decker asked.

Both shook their heads no. No latency of response.

“Could you play games on the computer if you wanted to?” Decker asked.

Aaron said, “No. It doesn’t have a graphics card. Unless Noam’s put one in there. I don’t think he knows enough about computers to do that. You have to know where to put it. Then you have to reset the dipswitches. Noam can’t program. I can’t see him tinkering with the hardware.”

Boruch added, “He has trouble just using canned software.”

“Then what does he do with the computer?” Decker asked.

Aaron said, “I think he writes stuff. I once tried to look at what he was doing, but he hid the monitor with his arms.”

“Yeah, he does that to me, too.”

“Is Noam a good student?” Decker asked.

“Not really,” Aaron said. “He’s sort of…well, lazy.”