“What’s happening now?”

“She tries to run, but the air lock closes. The monster backs her against the door. Its claws move forward. She opens her mouth to scream, but she can’t because she knows screaming won’t make a difference.”

“Shh!” said someone in front of us.

“She’s blind—you got a problem with that?”

The monster did its thing, and the audience shrieked, their voices blending into the squishing, crunching sound effects.

“What did the monster do?” Lexie asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, I do!” She licked her lips. “Every little detail!”

By the time the movie was over, I felt like I was stumbling out of a day of state testing.

“Don’t worry,” Lexie said as we left arm in arm, “I won’t ask you to describe the food on my plate.”

At dinner, however, she asked the waitress for a Braille menu.

“Are you kidding?” I told her. “This is just a burger place; they don’t have Braille menus.”

“He’s right,” said the waitress.

“Then I’d like the manager to come out and read me the menu,” she said.

“I can read it,” I told her.

“No, I want the manager.”

The waitress snapped her order booklet closed. “Sure, hon,” and she went off to find the manager.

“You like giving people a hard time, don’t you?”

Lexie grinned. “Only when they’re blind to the blind.”

In a few moments the manager walked out. No—strided out. This was one of those places famous for, like, fourteen thousand different burgers on the menu, and Lexie charmingly insisted that the manager read every single one of them, like it was his catechism. When he was done, she gave him the phone number of a place where he could order Braille menus.

That’s when I think I fell in love.

“What if he’d refused to read you the menu?” I asked after the manager was gone.

“Then I’d sic the Four-S club on him.”

“Don’t you mean Four-H?”

“No, Four-S. It stands for the four senses other than sight. It’s a club at my school. We have contacts with the mayor’s office and the New York Times, and we organize pickets in front of antiblind establishments.”

“You should call yourself the Three-B club,” I told her. “Blind Ball Busters.”

She laughed.

“I’ll bet you’re the leader.”

She didn’t deny it. “I’m a force to be reckoned with.”

“Just like your grandfather.”

When it came to body language, I wasn’t exactly bilingual, but still I could tell by the way she shifted that she wasn’t too pleased by the comparison. “I meant that in a good way,” I told her. “I mean, it’s like we all get our raw materials from our families—but it’s up to us whether we build bridges or bombs.”

“What are you building?” she asked.