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us by a year and a half. I didn’t want to talk to her or anything—that was too scary. I just wanted to look at her.
    I ate with the other guys, while the adults sat around a couple of big tables on the patio and drank cocktails with their burgers and baked potatoes. Jennifer was sitting on a low stone wall bordering the patio, with a couple of other girls.
    After dinner, Mom came over with Zan and asked me to hold him for a while.
    “Do I have to?” I whispered. I felt myself starting to blush. Things were going well with these other guys and I didn’t want them to think I was a freak, or a sissy. Mom just gave me a look and put Zan into my arms.
    And then all the guys were looking at him and asking questions.
    “So he’s going to talk?” said David.
    “Well, not talk exactly,” I said. “Chimps can’t talk. But he can learn ASL. American Sign Language.”
    “That’s pretty wild,” said Hugh. “Talking with a chimp.”
    “What’ll they talk about?” Evan asked.
    David snorted into his pop. “‘Give me another friggin’ banana. And make it quick.’ Stuff like that.”
    “Are you going to help teach him?” Hugh asked.
    “Yeah. Sure. He’s part of the family now.”
    Suddenly I felt proud to be holding him, and to know so much about chimps.
    “Can I hold him?”
    Startled, I looked over and saw Jennifer beside me. “Oh, hey, sure, yeah, hi,” I said idiotically. “Yeah, sure.” Carefully I transferred Zan into her slender, waiting arms. “Oh my God, he is
so
adorable,” she said. “How old is he?” “Just under six weeks.”
    She was wearing some kind of perfume. It smelled like the incense Mom burned in the house sometimes. Sandalwood. I wanted to breathe it forever.
    “So, is he like your pet?” she asked.
    “More like my baby brother,” I said, surprising myself. “That is so cool.” “He’s pretty cool, yeah.”
    Zan seemed to like her too. He nuzzled right up against her breasts. She caught me looking and gave a little embarrassed laugh.
    “So are you going to Windermere next year?” she asked me. I shook my head. “Do you go there?” “We both do,” she said, nodding at her brother. I decided that Windermere was the school I’d wanted to go to my entire life.
    “Don’t you have to be really smart to go there?” I asked. David shook his head. “Nah. Jennifer got in.” “Goof,” she said.
    Then she handed Zan back to me and returned to her friends.
    The rest of the barbecue I kept hoping she’d come back and talk to us, but she didn’t. I sneaked looks at her whenever I could. I didn’t want to be too obvious. Still, I must have spent about twenty minutes total just staring, and I never caught her glancing in my direction.
    On the way home, I sat in the back seat with Zan asleep in my arms. Mom was talking about Mrs. Godwin.
    “She certainly has firm opinions about the right schools. She kept telling me Ben should go to Windermere University School.”
    She looked over at Dad, like she was expecting him to snort and shake his head and say how ridiculous that was.
    “It’s not such a bad idea,” Dad said. “We probably should have put a little more thought into schools before we moved.”
    “The local public school is perfectly fine,” said Mom.
    Dad said, “I think Ben might benefit from a more rigorous environment.”
    “The specimen is in the back seat,” I reminded them.
    Mom turned around to look at me. “You’d have to wear a uniform, Ben.”
    I shrugged. “Wouldn’t be so bad.”
    “I’m against the whole idea of private schools,” she said.
    “You
went to private schools,” I pointed out.
    “So I should know what a breeding ground for privilege they are.”
    “You got an excellent education,” Dad said.
    “You’d put him in private school just because the Godwin kids go?” Mom asked, chin lifted.
    “I’m
thinking
of putting him in, if it’s good for him.”
    “Hey, I’m open to the idea,” I said. “David and his friends