“Oh dear,” Shelley said. Such a stupid response, she thinks—as she continues to think about it—especially since it felt like Ned was accusing her of telling Harvey things. “He must have heard me talking to his big brother, who used to tell him lots of scary things but has stopped now; he really has. We’re working on all that now. In fact, the Ninja Turtles are really good, and I try to keep him interested in them.”

“He knows a lot, Mrs. . . . I’m sorry, is your last name the same as Harvey’s?”

She nodded—she likes matching Harvey—but told him, since he told her to call him Ned, that he could call her Shelley.

Twice, the teacher has called her to talk about Harvey, and camp only started a week ago. Twice, he has told her something she didn’t know—he knows the names of a lot of serial killers, for instance—and maybe didn’t want to know. Both times he has lingered as if he had more to say.

“What?” she asked. “What?”

“He’s a nice kid—really he is,” he said, but then there was that pause everyone recognizes, that pause like screwing the lid tight on something about to explode.

“Why do you indulge him with all this bedtime routine?” Brent had asked when Harvey was three. “We have to help him grow up. You won’t always be there to hold his hand.” The worried expression on Brent’s face seemed more about her than about Harvey. The underlying message was about how she had raised Jason. Jason was spoiled. Jason was a mama’s boy. Jason needed to buck up. Jason needed to keep scary stories to himself.

“Michelangelo gets thirsty in the middle of the night,” she said, and proceeded to put the milk in the closet, her chest tight with the anxiety of doing what was so hard for her to do, which was say what she really meant. But you have to defend your children. You do. Children without a defender don’t get shit. At the time, all she wanted was that milk inside of Harvey’s closet, the door left cracked just enough that he could see it, so she could get him to fall asleep.

And about Einstein, the world’s smallest horse, Ned said when he called. Did she know Harvey had told all the kids that he was getting a miniature horse?

No. No, she didn’t know that.

Did she know that he’d promised a party for everyone in the class to come over and meet the horse? That he said his dad is bringing the horse when he comes back home from his hike in Alaska. And did she know Harvey leaves messages for the ghosts out in their yard, and sometimes leaves food out there?

No, she didn’t know that either.