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T-shirt and tosses it to Cody.
    â€œIs it clean?”
    â€œNo, I wiped my butt on it.”
    Cody scowls at him, smells the shirt just in case, andwalks away satisfied. He disappears into his room, struggling, Houdini-like, to get his head and arms into the shirt at the same time.
    The Bruiser comes back out to join me in the kitchen.
    â€œSo, you haven’t gotten to the part where you ask me to stay away from your sister. You tried threatening me and that didn’t work, so now I figure you’re going to try it more respectfully.”
    I look away from him. I know it might make me seem guilty, but, really, I’m feeling angry at myself for having bullied him in the first place.
    â€œBrontë makes her own decisions,” I tell him, then add, “but I won’t be happy if she comes anywhere near Uncle Hoyt.”
    â€œNeither will I,” he says, “and just in case you’re worried, I’m not like my uncle.”
    â€œI can see that.” Then I hold out my hand to him. “So…no hard feelings?”
    He looks at my hand for a few moments, and I think that maybe there are hard feelings after all; but then he shakes it with a decisive, confident grasp.
    We nod to each other—an understanding has been reached, like a détente between two nations that would otherwise be at war.
    Then Uncle Hoyt slinks out from his lair, and Brewster withdraws his hand like he’s been caught with it in the cookiejar. The man looks at us suspiciously, as if we’re plotting against him. “What’s he still doing here? Didn’t I tell you to get rid of Tri-tip?”
    The Bruiser opens his mouth to say something, but I speak first. “What is he supposed to do, snap his fingers and make it go away?”
    The man grins, and it’s something slimy and nasty. All of a sudden I feel unclean again. “Can’t expect you to lift the whole animal at once,” he says. “The chain saw’s out in the shed.”

12) MISDIRECTION
    When I get home that night, I don’t say anything to Brontë about where I was and what I did that afternoon. Even when she comments at dinner that I smell funny, I just tell her I’ll take a shower—even though I’ve already taken two.
    I won’t get into the details of Tri-tip’s disposal. It was not a pretty sight. I can only thank God there are Dumpsters just on the other side of the Bruiser’s fence. Now I understand the close-knit nature of the Mafia, because there’s something bonding about disposing of a body.
    The next day I see the Bruiser during passing, between second and third periods. We nod to each other an unspoken greeting, almost like it’s something secret. He raises a hand to hoist his backpack farther up on his shoulder, and that’s when I notice the knuckles on his right hand. Four out of five knuckles are all raw and starting to scab. I figure he must havescraped them up pretty badly during our bull-carving extravaganza yesterday afternoon.
    Reflexively I look at my own knuckles and notice right away that my scabs are gone. I tend to heal quickly, so I try to dismiss it. After all, how often do I actually look at my knuckles? I get scraped and bruised so much, I don’t notice it anymore.
    Except that I did notice my scabbed knuckles yesterday. The Bruiser and I both did.
    I try to tell myself it’s nothing, that it’s one of life’s simple tricks, just like a stage magician’s clever misdirection to keep the audience baffled. Yet deep down I know there’s something more going on here. Something truly inexplicable I’m afraid to consider.

13) EMPHATICALLY
    My brother’s an idiot.
    Sure, Tennyson’s smart, but he’s an idiot in all the other ways that matter. Such as when he forced his way into our miniature golf game and intimidated Brewster just because we went out on a date. It wasn’t even an evening date; it was a