My dad also had no idea that the people he hired to fix his lawn mower were a bunch of incompetents. All they had to do was tighten three bolts, and the machine would have been good as new. Unless by loosening those three bolts I’d done irreparable damage to the motor, that is. Either way, our lawn mower was never the same again. Even after he had it repaired, the blades would regularly jam, only to come unstuck a few feet farther on. After he was done mowing, my dad would have to level out a bunch of uneven spots on the lawn with the Weed Eater. The problem was never quite bad enough to justify buying a new mower, though. All I’d managed to do was suck out all the joy my father once got from mowing the lawn.

After we move, time passes and I get better at dissembling my emotions. I stop shaking when I make one of my “plays.” I learn to lie without shifting on my feet. I begin constantly observing others. I try out a few innocent little experiments, like switching the positions of objects and observing how their owners react. I’m a snoop. I know who has something to hide; or, rather, I know who’s stupid enough to leave blackmailable items lying around where I can find them. You have to understand that the dominant emotion throughout my teenage years was boredom. An all-pervasive ennui that lasted four or five years, leaving me feeling completely detached, as if what other people did scarcely affected me. Who are these people? I wondered. Do they really deserve to live?

The advantage of not knowing anyone is that it goes both ways: no one knows you either. So I didn’t have to be the same person I was before. I was free to be whomever I wanted to be. My parents loved me unconditionally and were far too absorbed in their daily routine to notice any changes. All I had to do was take care not to disappoint them. Friends? They were pretty much nonexistent during those years. The few I had managed to make were left behind along with our old home. They’ve grown hazy in my memory. Mine was the euphoric state of the happy few who get the opportunity to reinvent themselves. I had a few humdrum acquaintances, people I hung out with now and then but wouldn’t call friends. People left me alone. People are perceptive like that, even kids. Survival is an inborn human instinct.