2 I creaked my way back up to the third floor and gently shook Arch's shoulder. No response. I tried again. A blue sweatshirted arm and balled fist reached out in protest. I sighed. The arm withdrew, pulled back to warm sheets like a turtle head to a shell. The sweat suit was part of a stage. Arch wore them all day and all night. The parenting trick with this all-purpose wardrobe was occasionally to insist that there be a change – for example, from a gamey green set to a clean gray one. After his swim the previous night in the Farquhars' heated pool, I had convinced him to put on the blue. This was to avoid an argument over clothes the first morning of summer school. Now I just had to get used to the idea of my child spending the day in his pajamas. I said, "Time to get up, kiddo." "Oh, why, why, why?" said Arch as he stretched and moaned and burrowed beneath pillows and sheets. "Why do I have to get up?" I said, "Summer school." He burrowed deeper. "I'm not going" was the muffled reply. "Arch." "No, no, no, I'm never going. I hate that school. This is supposed to be my vacation. Go away." "You don't even know anything about that school." He growled. One problem with living in someone else's house was that you couldn't raise your voice when you needed to. Especially when the other residents were asleep. I leaned in close to where I thought his ear was. "Arch," I said softly, "you said you wanted to go." A few moments of silence passed. I knew him well enough to recognize when he was reviewing his strategy. Then his voice was behind me. "Please, Mom," my son said. "Please don't make me." I whirled around. His actions had been completely noiseless. Now he giggled at my surprise. I said, "I wish you wouldn't do that disappearing act when I'm talking to you." He squinted at me. His face was all white skin and freckles since he'd had his hair cut in a flattop. This new military-short haircut I put down to General Farquhar's influence. But Arch was so thin and pale he looked like a young prisoner of war. I handed him his glasses. "You are mean," he said. He pushed his glasses into place and regarded me with magnified brown eyes. "None of those rich kids will like me. They all play tennis and have fancy parties and they never invite kids like me." "What kind of kid are you?" He groaned, a deep guttural sound warning against further probing. He looked at the wall and said in a low voice, "Not cool. That's what kind." He turned away from the wall but avoided my eyes. He said, "I had bad dreams again." Before I could reply, he stumbled past me into the bathroom. I stared at the wall. The lush pink roses on the Farquhars' cheery wallpaper stared back. A few mementos from our house – Arch's new paraphernalia for magic tricks, his sixth-grade class picture, and a glass container of dice for his role-playing games-were propped up on shelves around the room, but they offered scant comfort. Bad dreams. I remembered the night three years ago, a year after the divorce was final, when John Richard had slashed my van tires, trashed my mailbox, and kicked in my front door. He was drunk. Arch was asleep and I had rushed into his room, blocked the door with a dresser and a desk, and screamed so loudly that John Richard left. John Richard had never harmed his son. Yet Arch still had faceless nightmares in which I died. Oh yes, the flimsiness of our house, compared with a week at the Farquhars' palace, had shown Arch and me what it was to be not rich and not cool. But we were going to be all right. Safe, once Aspen Meadow Security finished with our old home. And soon the bad dreams would end. "Listen, Arch – " I began softly when he came out of the bathroom. But words failed. "Look, I have to go over to Elk Park for that brunch. I'm going to meet Philip afterwards – " I stopped to check his face. He was rolling his eyes, a modest indication of his opinion of Philip Miller. I went on, "There are fresh blueberry muffins in the kitchen for you. Marla will be by. In forty minutes." He glanced at me ever so briefly, then pulled the rumples out of the blue sweat suit. He gave me the full benefit of his large brown eyes, so vulnerable behind the thick glasses. He said, "I'll be okay. Don't worry about me."