“It’s the only word she knows. I would never go out with him. Junior Davis is poorer than I am. He doesn’t have a car.” She holds up a CD and considers it. Prof rotates his CDs a lot, so there’s always something new in the shoe box. “Is this one any good?” she asks Prof. “Marvin Gaye?”

“Put it on,” Prof says. “You’ll find out.”

The school bus passes by the vacant mall in the middle of Colchis, empty stores, and then under the shadow of the four smokestacks of Franklin Arms, where they made guns until they went bankrupt last year. Across the street from the entrance to the Arms is a bar called the Crossways Tavern, which has a neon martini glass with an olive that is already blinking on and off when the school bus passes it every day at three o’clock. Colchis is a special place to live. It’s one of four small and grimy factory towns crammed together in the Minnechaug Valley. The others are Minnechaug, Bavaria, and Linerville. Although the towns appear uniformly depressing, each one is in fact unique, with its own history, extinct industry, and adjoining vacant mall.

Grimshaw is still telling Prof about her domestic woes. “So, anyway,” she says, as she puts the music on, “I’ll be getting off at her house today.”

“I have a name,” I say to the window.

“Uh-oh,” Prof says. “Your mom complains about that. She worries.”

“Right.” Grimshaw sits down next to me. “Maybe I’ll get kidnapped by the principal.”

“Sst!” I throw an elbow into her ribs. “Careful with the state secrets, there.”

“Will you relax,” Grimshaw hisses back at me. “Nobody even cares.”

Grimshaw’s mom doesn’t like me. There are a number of reasons for this. First is the issue of my mother’s continuous faux pas. Second is that Grimshaws never graduate from high school. Around age fifteen and a half, they quit, and then let the clock run until the attendance specialist from the district gets tired of facing the Rottweiler mixes chained to the car wrecks in front of their house. Now, under my evil influence, the last Grimshaw is within a year of ruining her mother’s perfect record.