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garbage bag.
    â€˜Okay, show’s over,’ he shouted as he walked out the gate. ‘All of you get out of here. Now!’
    We began to wander off, a few of us lagging behind to take one last look at the carcass on the road. Mr Barrett picked the cat up with his bare hands and threw it in the garbage bag. Benji didn’t move. I heard some of the other kids chatting excitedly as they walked away.
    â€˜I’ve never seen anything dead,’ one of them said.
    â€˜I saw my grandma.’
    â€˜I saw my uncle in a coma.’
    â€˜Yeah, but he wasn’t dead, was he? Doesn’t really count.’
    Mr Barrett swung the bag over his shoulder and strolled off towards the dumpsters without a glance in our direction. I walked over and stood beside Benji, the tears now streaming silently down his face. I felt bad. Not because he was upset, but because he was doing what I desperately wanted to do. I wanted to curl in a little ball on the ground and cry for that poor cat, its beautiful tabby fur now hardened with dry blood. But I couldn’t bring myself to. I had cried so much over the past few years I was empty. But Benji cried. He cried openly and without fear. He cried as if he were alone.
    â€˜Are you okay?’ I finally asked.
    He didn’t say anything. He turned around to look at me, his eyes glistening. Then he ran off.
    Lying in bed that night, all I could think about was the dead cat. I thrashed about in the heat, a tiny fan blowing ineffectually into my face. I thought about the dumpster, how hot it was in there during summer. One day the other kids had thrown me in, amused by my indifference to their taunts and my refusal to fight back. They had closed the lid and suddenly everything was silent, black and hot, like the inside of an oven. On an excursion to the Holocaust museum, an old lady had told us about the furnaces, the places where they burned children alive, and I pictured that rustic green dumpster at the back of the schoolyard, crouched in the sun, its mouth open.
    I imagined now what would happen when the trash was collected, how the cat’s body would be compacted with soda cans and candy bar wrappers until it was all one compressed block of rubbish. I wondered who its owners were, and whether someone was tapping on the side of a tin with a spoon, calling its name. I remembered that dumpster collection only happened once a week, and that the next collection was days away. I still had time.
    The next day under a blistering hot sun I relayed my plan to Benji. We stood in the middle of the oval watching our classmates play baseball. Mr Barrett always sent the worst players as far away from the diamond as possible, where there was nothing to do but run after balls hit so far out that it didn’t matter how slowly we threw them back. I was more than happy with this arrangement.
    I sat on the grass, patted the ground next to me, and Benji reluctantly sauntered over, squatting beside me amongst the dandelions. We didn’t say anything, just watched the players run in circles and picked at the flowers. Then Benji started to scratch at his face. Under the sun his pale skin was turning lobster red.
    Someone hit a ball out of field and everyone cheered. The boys ran to the fence and started climbing it. Mr Barrett chased from behind and yelled at them to get down.
    â€˜That was horrible yesterday,’ I said to Benji. ‘You know, what happened to that cat.’
    He waited, and for a while I thought he wasn’t going to say anything. Then he spoke.
    â€˜I have a cat,’ he said. ‘Freddie Prinze.’
    â€˜Freddie Prinze? That actor? The one who killed himself?’
    Benji nodded. A loud chock sound echoed across the field and another ball sailed over our heads. Neither of us made any attempt to get up. Mr Barrett yelled in our direction. I gave him a wave and, defeated, he went to get another ball from his gym bag. Benji laughed. He tore at the dandelions