The first hour was useless. I kept smelling her and feeling the heat from her body and repeating in my head that I had a girl at my house. Not just a girl, but the girl. So it came as a surprise when numbers, correct ones, started imprinting themselves on paper as if my pencil were possessed. After another hour of Claire’s arithmetical trickery, insight was slashing through my brain as swiftly as the first blades of morning light through Troll City. Maybe I’d surprise Pinkton after all.

“Your da’s going to be upset? Is that it?”

My face was so close to the page I could smell the pencil lead. I looked up into a bag of chips, which Claire pushed aside so she could see me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’ve been checking the front door all night.”

“Have I?”

“Like you’re expecting him to come busting in with a tire iron and bash in our heads.”

“Sorry,” I said. “He wouldn’t use a tire iron.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh? What would he use, then? A cricket bat?”

“No, no, no. He’s not going to use anything, period. He’s not going to attack us. I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Dad works in electronics. He mows lawns. No one’s getting their head bashed in. I’m just—it’s weird, because he normally doesn’t work late. He’ll probably just be surprised to see you when he gets here, that’s all, because I don’t, you know, have a lot of people over.”

“Yes, I noticed the defenses. Terrifically imposing. Are we expecting an invasion?”

I shrugged. “There’s always something. That’s what Dad would say.”

“Is there? Always something, I mean? Is America all that dangerous?”

“Depends on where you go.” I pictured the space beneath my bed. “There are bad areas.”

“This street didn’t look like a bad area. Unless the gang members here wear sweater vests.”

“It’s not a bad area. Dad’s just…excitable.”

“And how does your mum feel about this? Most women I know aren’t in love with the steel-shutters-and-barred-windows look. To each her own, of course.”

“Yeah, she didn’t like it either.”

“She’s gone?”

“Yeah.”

“Dead?”

The frankness with which she asked this caught me off guard. I dared to look at her for several consecutive seconds and detected nothing besides an earnest desire to know. Her lack of shyness inspired me to behave likewise.

“She left us when I was a kid.”

“Why did she do that? Nice boy like you. Husband who wouldn’t use a tire iron on anyone.”