Altemonte said, She thinks she takes care of me but I take care of her. She bakes like twenty pies per day and always says it’s dinner at two in the afternoon. I take care of her by eating so many pies. If I didn’t eat those pies she’d cry her eyes out. That’s how come I’m so chubby.

Do you have a dad? I asked.

Sure I do, Altemonte said. Who else do you think taught me how to be in the woods and twist joe-pye and find arrowheads? He comes over and knocks real loud and tries to come in. But he took bad pills my grandma said, so she tells him to go. So he goes. That’s what grown-ups are good at. Leaving.

Not my grown-ups, I said. Not my women.

Oh yeah? he said. Then how come you’re here and not at home with them?

My women didn’t leave me, I said. I sounded it out to see how it felt. I said, It was the other way around. It was me who left them.

Altemonte looked at me to see if I was lying but I wasn’t lying. Cool, he said. I kind of hate grown-ups. Grown-ups are hypocrites.

I wanted to ask him what a hypocrite was but instead I asked him, What was that thing you did when Bexley called you that name? Because even though it was the name I had just called him I didn’t want to say it anymore.

What thing? he asked.

That thing where you put up a force field, I said.

Oh that, he said. That’s just something I invented. In my laboratory. He opened his arms toward the forest. It’s not perfect yet, though, he said. I’m still tinkering with it. Someday I’m going to make it into a firebomb.

When they call you names, how come you don’t tell the teacher? I asked.

How come you don’t? he asked right back, and I didn’t say that it was because I knew if I told on Bexley then he would never be my friend and Bexley’s way would never be my way. Somehow I knew that Altemonte had a different reason that would maybe make my reason seem like the reason of a little fucking moron. I said, I asked you first. And he said, Because it wouldn’t make things better if I told the teacher, it would only make things worse, where do you think Bexley learned it from? What about your grandma? I asked. Altemonte said, Yeah, one time I told her and she just said those kids are ignorant hicks you better pray for them, but I could tell it just made her feel bad and I don’t want her to feel bad because it’s just me and her. We’re all we’ve got.