“I think I’m just going to walk around for a while and say hi to some friends.” Ben didn’t want to look at Ahmed’s face as he said this. He pretended to look all around for anything he might need before he left. “I’ll be back at five to get dressed for Seated, so…” He didn’t have the brazenness to say, “so everything better be finished by then.” Ben nodded to Hector and Benito.

“I am so looking forward to this year,” said Ahmed.

Again there seemed to be only sincerity in his face. Ahmed smiled, and he saw Ben place the gift of this smile to one side.

“Me too,” said Ben. He turned away.

Ben turned the door handle slowly and peeked out. The hallway was empty.

When Ben was out in the hall, with its smell of commercial cleaning products and hardly noticeable mildew, he was taken over by homesickness. He wanted to live with someone like Tim Green; it would have been fine not to be really that cool. He imagined a whole year sharing a room with this person, and the prospect of never feeling at ease made him come close to crying. He had the right to feel at ease.

At the end of the hallway he shoved open the fire door and let gravity take him down the stairs in two- and three-step drops. He started walking toward the school’s power plant at the far southwest end of campus. Someone was playing the carillon in the chapel tower, and Ben could just decipher the plodding tunes. Between hymns came waggish versions of the Inspector Gadget theme and “I Saw Her Standing There.” When Ben passed anyone on the path he looked straight down at the toe of each shoe as it came forward. Every time he looked up or came around a corner he thought it would be Hutch.

Ben couldn’t remember how Tim Green had joined the Um Club crew. He was from the neighborhood right next to Chip’s, two-level Colonials one after the other. The differences were there. Tim and Tim’s dad wore T-shirts from 5k runs, there were pitchers of sun tea on the front walk, no one came to cut the lawn or mulch the garden beds. There wasn’t enough room in Tim’s backyard to really huck a Frisbee, and so they walked to the little reservoir near the house or stood on the quiet street.

Once when Ben’s mom was dropping him off at Tim’s house, she said, “I can’t stand houses this close together. Everyone can watch each other’s TV.” And in fact one time after dark when Ben and Tim were walking back from the reservoir field, Ben saw synchronized changes of light through the darkened windows of three adjacent houses.