He had no answer. “Just be careful tonight,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this game.”

I took a deep, slow breath. I knew Hunter meant well, but his dark cloud layered over my own blocked out any hint of light.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” I told him.

“I know, but still . . . wear your lucky underwear or something.”

“Anything that close to my sweaty junk all day can’t be very lucky.”

He gave an obligatory chuckle, and we left it at that.

I was in a daze that day. The world went about its business, not knowing the tether it hung on. The Edwards told me this was always going on somewhere. Maybe it was best to live in ignorance of the big picture. How could the world function if it knew the things I knew?

I didn’t want to be in class; I couldn’t think, couldn’t function, and with each hour that passed, the sky outside got darker, as if that black hole was looming just beyond the clouds.

At noon it rained. It didn’t just rain, it poured. If it kept on like that, our game would be canceled. Part of me wanted that, so the inevitable would be postponed, but I knew time was not my ally.

And then there was Katie, who filled the gaps between my thoughts about Leo and the end of the world. Katie and Layton weren’t in the lunchroom that day, and it troubled me. As seniors, we could go off campus, but the two of them rarely did. Layton seemed more interested in presiding over his cafeteria court.

“Why do you care?” Paul asked. “Don’t we have more important things to do?”

He and I were working on strategies for the integration dance. Making it happen right under the school board’s nose was very much like a football draw play—where the quarterback fakes a pass and hands it off to the running back instead. We were now calling it the “disintegration dance,” because we were hoping it would cause certain school board members to melt down into the pork and beans they came from.

And although I wanted every minute I could get with Paul before the next change, I had to go look for Layton and Katie, if only to make sure that Katie was all right.

“Fine,” said Paul, refusing to join me in my fool’s errand. “But I’m eating your Jell-O.”