He had none of his own prized possessions here. The pocketknife he had stolen from his dad’s dresser—the one he had used to stab Cody—had been taken by the detectives. He had put all of his most treasured things in his backpack that day, including the dried-out head of a rattlesnake he had watched a gardener kill with a spade. He never got his backpack back after they arrested him.

The knife had been the most important thing. He had always pretended that his father had given it to him for his birthday when he was nine. He had made up all kinds of fantasies about his father showing him how to use it, the two of them camping out and using the knife to cut branches and gut fish. The truth was, his father had never given him a present, had never even remembered his birthday.

When Dennis had asked Miss Navarre when he could get his knife back, she had looked at him like he was crazy. Maybe crazy ran in his family. He was locked up in a mental hospital after all.

Dennis had never thought of his father as crazy, just mean. But in the end, everyone said he had to have lost his mind to do what he had done.

People didn’t think Dennis knew what all had happened, but he did. He had never told anyone, but he had been right there the night his father had beaten his mother to death. Hiding up in his room, he had heard every slap, every curse, every cry. It hadn’t been the first time (so he didn’t think his father had gone crazy, just that he was drunk and mean, as he often was) and he hadn’t thought his mother would die, but she had.

The rest of what had left him an orphan he had heard in bits and pieces, listening to people when they didn’t know it. That was one thing he was really good at.

He had been in a room at the sheriff’s office when it happened, on account of everyone making such a stink about him stabbing Cody—who didn’t die. Some stupid cow from Child Services had been trying to get him to draw pictures of his feelings. What the fuck was that? You couldn’t draw a picture of something you couldn’t see.

Anyway, his dad had come into the sheriff’s office and took the sheriff hostage and threatened to kill him. But in the end he had killed himself.

His dad was a loser. Dennis was glad he was dead. And his mother was a stupid, useless drunk who never did anything for him. All she ever did was yell at him. He didn’t need her.

He didn’t need anybody.