Now Ben saw that very pine tree, with its ancient sap stains running down from the holes of missing limbs. It was thinner than Ben had imagined it, and its back side was browning unevenly as though hosting a parasite. Ben realized that on his earlier trips to SJS he hadn’t seen the whole school—or even the majority of it—but he had built a complete version in his mind, and now that he was actually here everything seemed to have conspired to be slightly different. The idea of climbing up onto this roof, let alone jumping off it, would never have occurred to him—not even an inkling—if he hadn’t known Teddy had already done it.

And then Ahmed’s face appeared over the steps and he climbed up and stepped onto the dock. Ahmed carried a caramel leather Coach satchel and wore clompy white basketball mid-tops. He had one of his dark brown, dense-as-carpet bath towels draped over his shoulders. Already once when Ben was alone in the room he had pinched one of these towels between his thumb and forefinger; it was a very serious towel.

Ahmed was glad to see that Ben was at the boat docks; it meant that he had made the right choice to come here after hearing about it in maths. So far the beauty and pace was almost blinding. His advisor had said, “Ask for help if you need it.”

The kids around them looked over at Ahmed. “Oh, Jesus,” said Evan softly. The three girls next to Ben turned their heads to see. Ahmed waved to Ben, but instead of coming over he headed to sit with Hideo, who was sitting by himself over toward the edge of the dock.

Ahmed greeted Hideo, laid down his towel and straightened it carefully, then took a large Nikon SLR camera out of the satchel and began taking pictures of the dock and the trees. The auto film advance was loud across the dock. He pointed the camera straight up into the blueness of the sky and took a picture. He took a picture of Ben and then placed the camera on top of the satchel.

Ben just lay back on his towel and closed his eyes, and the sun glowed red through his eyelids. Hutch started making conversation with the girls next to them. Ben heard they were from Paige House, and it became clear that Paige was the dorm where the good-looking girls who controlled fates lived. When Ben opened his eyes again he saw that the girl had reclasped her top and was sitting up with her arms loosely hugging her knees.

“Weeksy, you comin in?” Hutch looked over and pulled his feet out of his flip-flops.

“Gimme some time, I want to get really hot before I go in.”

“You, my friend, are never going to be hot no matter how long you stay in the sun.”