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street where small children on bicycles could be watched from the front window. Few roofs had more than one Y-energy cell. The trees, huge old sugar maples, were beautiful.
    “Come in,” Richard Keller said.
    He was no taller than she, stocky, with a bad case of acne. Probably no genetic alterations except sleep, Leisha guessed. He had thick dark hair, a low forehead, and bushy black brows. Before he closed the door Leisha saw him stare at her car and driver, parked in the driveway next to a rusty ten-speed bike.
    “I can’t drive yet,” she said. “I’m still fifteen.”
    “It’s easy to learn,” Richard said. “So, you want to tell me why you’re here?”
    Leisha liked his directness. “To meet some other Sleepless.”
    “You mean you never have? Not any of us?”
    “You mean the rest of you know each other?” She hadn’t expected that.
    “Come to my room, Leisha.”
    She followed him to the back of the house. No one else seemed to be home. His room was large and airy, filled with computers and filing cabinets. A rowing machine sat in one corner. It looked like a shabbier version of the room of any bright classmate at the Sauley School, except there was more space without a bed. She walked over to the computer screen.
    “Hey—you working on Boesc equations?”
    “On an application of them.”
    “To what?”
    “Fish migration patterns.”
    Leisha smiled. “Yeah, that would work. I never thought of that.”
    Richard seemed not to know what to do with her smile. He looked at the wall, then at her chin. “You interested in Gaea patterns? In the environment?”
    “Well, no,” Leisha confessed. “Not particularly. I’m going to study politics at Harvard. Pre-law. But of course we had Gaea patterns at school.”
    Richard’s gaze finally came unstuck from her face. He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Sit down, if you want.”
    Leisha sat, looking appreciatively at the wall posters, shifting green on blue, like ocean currents. “I like those. Did you program them yourself?”
    “You’re not at all what I pictured,” Richard said.
    “How did you picture me?”
    He didn’t hesitate. “Stuck-up. Superior. Shallow, despite your IQ.”
    She was more hurt than she had expected to be.
    Richard blurted, “You’re one of only two Sleepless who’re really rich. You and Jennifer Sharifi. But you already know that.”
    “No, I don’t. I’ve never checked.”
    He took the chair beside her, stretching his stocky legs straight in front of him, in a slouch that had nothing to do with relaxation. “It makes sense, really. Rich people don’t have their children genetically modified to be superior—they think any offspring of theirs is already superior. By their values. And poor people can’t afford it. We Sleepless are upper-middle class, no more. Children of professors, scientists, people who value brains and time.”
    “My father values brains and time,” Leisha said. “He’s the biggest supporter of Kenzo Yagai.”
    “Oh, Leisha, do you think I don’t already know that? Are you flashing me or what?”
    Leisha said with great deliberateness, “I’m talking to you.” But the next minute she could feel the hurt break through on her face.
    “I’m sorry,” Richard muttered. He shot off his chair and paced to the computer and back. “I am sorry. But I don’t…I don’t understand what you’re doing here.”
    “I’m lonely,” Leisha said, astonished at herself. She looked up at him. “It’s true. I’m lonely. I am. I have friends and Daddy and Alice. But no one really knows, really understands—what? I don’t know what I’m saying.”
    Richard smiled. The smile changed his whole face, opened up its dark planes to the light. “I do. Oh, do I. What do you do when they say, ‘I had such a dream last night’?”
    “Yes!” Leisha said. “But that’s even really minor. It’s when I say, ‘I’ll look that up for you tonight’ and they get that funny look on their face that