“What happened?” Renee asked, getting anxious.

Anne took a deep breath. “You might want to sit down for this.”

They went into the Roaches’ tiny living room where the television was playing a Star Trek rerun. Anne expected to see Cody on the couch, watching intently. Spaceships were his obsession. But the couch was empty and Renee offered her a seat there.

Dinner was cooking, the smell of roast chicken drifting in from the kitchen. The little dog hopped up on the couch to give Anne a closer look.

Anne told the story for what seemed like the tenth time in twenty-four hours. Cody’s mother sat, stunned.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked, her voice as thin as she was. “He came running home yesterday with a bad stomach. He’d had an accident in his pants. I thought maybe it was something he ate at school, or there’s always a bug going around . . . He didn’t say a word.”

“Did he seem upset?”

“Well, yeah, but . . . He’s a ten-year-old boy. I thought he was upset about having the accident. He gets picked on a lot, you know.”

That was true. In the jungle that was childhood, Cody Roache was well down in the pecking order. Children could be cruel, their meaner instincts yet to be padded over by the layers of subterfuge, dishonesty, and social niceties adults accumulated over the years. And the kids who were a little different, a little slower, not as hip, took the brunt of it.

Cody was small and homely and a little odd. He didn’t really have friends, Anne had observed. He had Dennis Farman, but that relationship was symbiotic, born out of necessity. None of the kids liked Dennis because he was a bully. He had teamed up with Cody to have a sidekick who looked up to him because of his toughness, and Cody had made friends with Dennis because it was safer for him to be for Dennis Farman than against him.

“He was sick all night,” his mother said. “And still this morning. He stayed in bed all day. I can’t get him to eat anything.”

“Would it be all right with you if I spoke with Cody?” she asked. “I’ve had some training . . .”

She felt like a fraud saying it. She was no more a child psychologist than the man in the moon. But for the time being, she was the closest thing these kids had.

Renee Roache led the way down the short hall to a bedroom with Star Wars stickers all over the door, knocked once, and cracked the door open.

“Cody? You have a visitor. Miss Navarre is here.”

Not a sound came from inside the room.