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in the ground and crushed them between his fingers.
    â€˜I hate Mr Barrett,’ he said, his voice cold. ‘He deserves a bullet in the head.’
    â€˜Teachers like him make you understand why Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did what they did,’ I replied, not even thinking before the words tumbled out. ‘Columbine wasn’t a very nice place to begin with, from what I’ve heard. I mean, killers aren’t made in a vacuum, you know? I’m not saying what they did was right. It wasn’t. I just hate how people call them evil and don’t think about why they did it.’
    I didn’t know whether he was going to call me a lunatic or crazy for sympathising with the Columbine killers.
    â€˜Columbine had a history of bullying and repression,’ he said as if reciting from a textbook. ‘The teachers had established a hierarchy that kept the jocks at the top, and everyone else on the bottom. What they did—Dylan and Eric—was a political act, like in the French revolution.’
    I was stunned, and kind of relieved. I had never heard anyone say something like that about Columbine. My Aunt Lynette always said the world was a better place now that ‘those sociopathic monsters’ had blown their own heads off.
    â€˜This place is just as bad,’ Benji continued. ‘Nothing but a bunch of jocks and cheerleaders.’
    I thought again of the cat baking in its metal coffin. ‘Would you be interested in coming on an expedition?’ I asked.
    Benji looked suspicious. ‘What kind of expedition?’
    â€˜I’m going to help the cat that got hit by the car,’ I said. ‘I’m going to save it.’
    â€˜How can you save it? It’s dead.’
    This was true. Still, I believed that dead things were not beyond dignity. And I was alive, and could do something about it. The whole incident had made me feel indescribably dirty, like a rubbernecker at the site of a car crash. I wanted nothing more than to get clean.
    â€˜Are you in or are you out?’ I asked. Benji looked across at his classmates, all the jocks and princesses and people we would never be like.
    â€˜I guess I’ll help you,’ he muttered, as if he were doing me an enormous favour. ‘There’s nothing on TV tonight anyway. ’
    Benji met me at the dumpster after class. We waited until the other students had left and the school was deserted. The dumpster was hot to touch, but luckily the handles had been in the shadow of the towering oaks above it. I took this as a sign that the natural world was pleased with my plan, that it too knew the importance of setting things right.
    If Benji was nervous he didn’t show it. As I struggled to lift the side of the lid, he took the other end without being asked, and together we hoisted the dumpster open and let the top bang noisily against the classroom wall. Immediately we smelt the cat, a cloying, decaying stench that slapped our faces. I covered my mouth with my hand. Benji heaved himself over the side and stuck his head in.
    â€˜I can see it,’ he yelled. ‘Its paw’s sticking out of the bag. I’m going in.’
    He threw his legs over and disappeared into the darkness. I waited in the cool breeze until the garbage bag appeared over the side, wet and torn, fur poking from a hole. I took the bag from Benji and gently laid it on the ground, trying not to look at the contents. Benji vaulted over the side of the dumpster and landed with a thud in the dirt.
    â€˜Careful,’ I said as he steadied himself inches from the bag. ‘You nearly jumped on it.’
    â€˜My cousin accidentally jumped on a puppy once. He was on the top of his bunk bed and the puppy was on the floor and he didn’t see it. He landed right on its stomach and its guts came out of its mouth.’
    â€˜Benji! That’s horrible.’
    He frowned. ‘Well, it happened. Just ’cause you don’t wanna hear