Ben was sure that security’s Land Rover would materialize around the corner and skid to a stop as soon as the Hawley door closed behind him. More than anything, Ben didn’t want to be the only wet to get caught, the only one so clueless and lame. He didn’t want to have Snake Eyes turn him around and put his hands on the hood like a perp on TV. Or to sit in the passenger seat of the Land Rover, all the other wets hidden carefully nearby, seeing his pallor in the reading lights of the car as Snake Eyes wrote up his report. Then the school would solve everything by just kicking him out. Ben wanted to stay inside, to lie in bed and look up at his glow-in-the-dark crumbs.

It was time. He put his face up to the cold window panel. He didn’t see anyone. Slowly he pressed down the crossbar. The latch retracted, no alarm bell went off, the door swung out and the cold air came freely into the entryway.

Ben put his head through the opening and looked outside while keeping his feet on the inside tile. Would that be considered cruising? Up by the courts he saw a dark shape pass under a lamp. Even in that quarter of a second he registered the shape as Matt. They were all going to be there without him. He had to go. Through curtains of dread he stepped all the way out the door, and then remembered that it would lock behind him. He stood there holding the door open, second after second, looking for something to prop it with. All he had in his pocket was a Bic Cristal pen, so he held it down at the bottom of the frame and let the weight of the door gently come against it. Spending so much time on the bright stoop was going to get him caught.

He jogged down the steps and then back against the wall of Hawley, out of the light. Now he felt safer. He could hear wind passing through the bare trees. The crickets or toads were long gone, and so other than the wind he couldn’t hear anything, and he knew that the motor of the Land Rover would clearly give itself away. If it came by he would just get over to the bushes along each building and lie down, and there would be no way for Snake Eyes to see him.