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help." He put his head down and returned to his own work, but didn't seem to be concentrating very well.
    Claire felt guilty that she'd argued with him when he had just been trying to offer her advice to get through the project. She resolved to patch it up and make him feel better. "I decided to give the story a happy ending. I just can't seem to make the charcoal do what I want it to do." She told him about her idea for a joyful reunion, and that she was struggling with the details of the embrace between the parents and the girl.
    The Freak snorted over her notion, but Corry gave her a supportive smile. By the look in his eyes, she knew that he shared her detestation of the subject. After he gave the Freak a stern glare, he turned back to Claire, gave her some tips on how to smear the charcoal to get a shadowing effect, and began to elaborate with her on her story. By the end of class, they envisioned that the little girl would prove to be a very important person one day, growing up to become a doctor and finding a cure for cancer.
    The Freak let out a few groans of annoyance and made a gagging noise once or twice, but Claire and Corry had already become adept at ignoring him. Their conversation flowed comfortably now.
    As more days passed, they managed to develop their conversations into a regular routine, talking about all kinds of subjects from the unusually warm October weather they were having to the unreasonable price increase of pizza in the school cafeteria. With their generalized topics, like the possible reasons that Ms. Frye's classroom smelled like formaldehyde (strange, since she was a history teacher, and not associated with science or animal dissections), they struck up a watered-down version of a friendship. It was the first time Claire felt a genuine amiability from any of her classmates since she started the school year; and that alone endeared Corry to that very rare honor of camaraderie that she accepted from almost no one.
     
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Home. Oh, boy. This was going to be uncomfortable. I sat in my car, which I parked on the curb in front of the house. Nothing had changed – well, maybe there was a shrub or two missing that used to frame the porch, but everything else looked just the way it did when I last saw it. I'd stayed away for so long that being here made me feel nervous. The familiarity of my surroundings fueled my anxiety, reminding me (as if I needed reminding) of the reasons I stayed away.
    Don't get me wrong. I didn't associate my anxiety with my parents. There had never been any estrangement between us, and everything was fine when they flew out to see me a little over a year ago. But that was on
my
turf. While they were there, they forced a promise from me to come back to Brickerton for a visit, and had been hounding me about it ever since. This was the fulfillment of that promise. I'd find reconciliation with my past during my sojourn here, or this would be the last time I would ever lay my eyes on Brickerton. That was my vow to myself.
    I took a deep breath, got out of the car and made for the porch steps. At the front door I hesitated. Should I knock or just go inside? This was my childhood home, but it wasn't home anymore. It might be rude if I just went in unannounced, but it could hurt my parents' feelings if I acted all formal by ringing the bell.
    I decided to knock and then enter on my own. That way I covered both bases. After rapping three times, I turned the door knob. It didn't give. It was locked. When I was a girl, the door was never locked. There was no need to lock it in a small town where everybody knew their neighbors. But after the kidnapping crime when I was in high school, all that changed. Every home was locked whether the inhabitants were home or not. Fences were built to separate people from their neighbors. Children could no longer run off and play until they were called in to dinner. The world of Brickerton changed then. And, it seemed, that change