Arno and I sit down on the bunk again. Milton remains standing, his arms tightly crossed, a tooth pinching his lower lip. He’s the latecomer to our troika. Arno and I have been friends since kindergarten. We live only a few houses from each other. Milton lives down the block. He’s more than a year younger, so he was barely on our radar until he got kicked up to seventh grade.

When he skipped sixth and joined us in junior high, no one wanted anything to do with him. Young and nerdy, he reminded us of the dorky preteens we were so relieved to no longer be. But Arno and I took pity on him — exiled to the back of every classroom, wandering alone through the junior high wing, getting accidentally bodychecked into lockers by crowds of larger bodies — and decided it would be fun to have a pet genius. (Plus Milton could always be counted on to do our homework.)

From the fallout shelter, we hear a faucet run overhead. Milton cocks his head as water gurgles through the pipes. He takes a deep breath and starts to tap his foot. Maybe we should go up. It’s not like my parents don’t know I smoke grass. The paterfamilias has decreed that there shall be no smoking (of any kind) in the house. But we didn’t actually smoke in the house. We smoked under it.

Milton shoves his hands into his pockets and starts to pace.

“Relax,” Arno says.

Milton keeps pacing.

“So, how was MIT?” I ask. This is the first time I’ve seen him since the drive home from Cambridge, when he was busy sleeping and I was busy tripping.

Milton recently finished his freshman year. He got skipped again in ninth grade and graduated a year ahead of us, at age fifteen. Class valedictorian. Sixteen hundred on his SATs. Only applied to one college: MIT.

“A lot of really smart people and really stupid intro courses.” Milton’s answer is terse, anxious.

“Was it hard to make friends?” Arno asks. For all his bluster, he is deeply insecure about making new friends when he gets to Bucknell in two months.

“Everyone’s new. They’re all in the same boat.” Milton looks up at the ceiling again, then at me. “Sorry, man. I gotta get out of here.”

“Cherry Jag, man,” Arno says. A polished red two-seat convertible is parked at the curb behind Arno’s black GTO. Ten minutes ago, after climbing out of the fallout shelter, we waited silently in the playroom until the doorbell rang and the front door opened and shut. After that the house was soundless again.

The paterfamilias is gone and so is whoever owns this Jaguar. The car is long, curvy, and aerodynamic, with a tan leather interior. Affixed to the chrome grille are several round metal badges: Jaguar, Coventry, England; Bay Shore Sports Car Club; Veterans’ Car Club of Great Britain.