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difference. No harm, no foul.”
    Eric nodded, shrugged it off as no big deal. “I don’t suppose you even
have
a Ping-Pong table, do you?”
    Griffin laughed, held his wrists out in front of his body. “I confess, Officer. You caught me. Go ahead, slap on the ’cuffs, haul me off to the Big House.”
    They climbed the stairs to Griffin’s bedroom.
    â€œWant to play video games?” Griffin offered. “I have a sick collection.”
    He definitely did. It was another thing that Eric’s mom was uptight about. Griffin had games that Eric wouldn’t be allowed to play in a million years.
    â€œThis one is about an assassin from another galaxy,” Griffin said, holding up the box. “It’s pretty wicked. He’s got mad skills. Lots of splurting blood, gushing up like geysers, it’s hysterical.”
    â€œDo
you
want to play?” Eric cautiously asked.
    Griffin threw the disk aside. “Nah, not really.” He looked around the room, gestured to a cage on his desk. “We could torture my gerbil?”
    For a minute—a second, really, maybe less than that—Eric thought Griffin might be serious. They locked eyes and there was something there, a passing darkness, then it was gone, like a storm cloud drifting away. Griffin smiled, laughed out loud. He was only joking.
    He reached for a dark wooden box, about the size of a thick dictionary. “Want to see a few of my souvenirs?”
    Griffin asked it with obvious pride. But Eric had to hide his disappointment when he looked through the contents. It was a weird assortment of random stuff, some kind of baseball pin, old coins, a pocketknife, a tooth, a couple of keys, a mishmash of junk.
    â€œThere’s a story behind every one of those pieces,” Griffin said.
    â€œOh yeah?” Eric pointed to the tooth. “What’s the story with that?”
    Griffin studied Eric’s face. He took the box,snapped it shut, and returned it to the shelf. “Maybe another time,” he said.
    â€œSure, whatever,” Eric answered, not knowing what else to say.
    They talked for a while. A long time had passed since Eric had a normal conversation with someone his own age. Griffin wanted to know all about Eric—he asked tons of questions, very curious—and Eric, to his surprise, answered all of them.
    â€œSo,” Griffin said. “Your dad isn’t around at all?”
    Eric touched on the major parts of the tale, leaving out a few key details. He told Griffin how his father took off one day, a spontaneous decision that was a long time coming. “It was like getting hit by a train,” Eric told Griff. “You can see it coming from miles down the track. You try to get ready for it. But when it hits you,
wham
, you’re still all messed up.”
    Eric added, “I guess my mom got tired of waiting for him to get his act together. So we moved here.”
    There was something about Griffin, the way he listened. Eric told Griffin things that he hadn’t said to anyone, ever. For his part, Griffin was really nice abouteverything—he seemed to
understand
—like he’d already been there. Like he could see inside Eric, and knew how he felt, even when Eric himself wasn’t so sure.
    Griffin blew the hair out of his eyes. “I guess it sucks to be you.”
    â€œSome days, yeah, it does.”
    When it was time for Eric to go, the boys agreed to get together again, soon. Eric left the house with a sense of relief, like he’d just dropped off a heavy backpack. He kept so many things buried inside, it was good to finally say them out loud. Eric felt lighter.
    Sure, Griffin was a different kind of guy, there was no question about that. He had his rough edges. He wasn’t like Eric’s old friends back in Ohio. But for one day, during those few hours, Griffin was what Eric needed.
    He was, Eric believed, a friend.

11
[crazy]
    ERIC PULLED THE