“She was terrific. I’m kind of holding out hope, but it’s a horrible mess either way,” I replied. My voice was a bit hollow as I tried to keep from letting any emotion into it. “I dunno. Why is it a big deal?”

“He turned up last night at two-thirty in the morning. That was the latest he’s ever come in. We took away privileges, but if we take away one thing he finds other things to do. We’re divided on whether to be stricter about curfew or to let him be. I’m one of the only people who gets along with him in some form, which means they keep asking me for my input. I never know what to say.”

“That’s a tough spot to be in.”

“Was he volunteering?”

“I don’t want to say anything he wouldn’t want me to say,” I said.

“Okay. Fair. I didn’t get the impression he was volunteering. Should we stop the walks? Let me know if you’re not comfortable saying.”

I wondered if he was going out to change. “Given his situation, he might need it. It’s hard to say—it would depend on how he’s doing here.”

Her head turned, and she looked at me with one eye. “How do you think he’s doing?”

“The kids are scared of him, apparently.”

“He’s odd. He celebrates being odd.”

It seemed like a tepid response, a half-answer. “Is that it? Or is there more?”

“A number of the other teachers and the admin are scared of him,” she admitted. “I am, sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Because when you see him with any regularity, you notice changes day to day. He’s had two roommates, and one asked to be moved to another room. The second was made of sterner stuff, but he gave up after sharing a room with Chris over the late winter and spring.”

“Chris can be tough to get along with,” I said.

“He was scared,” Val said. “He wasn’t and isn’t comfortable being in the same room as Chris. He’s been uneasy even when Chris wasn’t present and it has been that way for two months.”

“And now he’s in a room with two beds and no roommate?”

“We’ve had lengthy debates about that too. We decided it was best to leave him be and let him have his room, at least for now.”

“Makes sense.”

We watched the kids playing for a little bit. Things were calmer with the spitter on her errand. The boy had wiped his face and was now carrying on making a dirt pile like nothing had happened.

“There was something else. We had a theft issue,” Val said.

“With Chris?”