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window and stares out into the darkness.
    I am crawling back into my bedroom through the window when I hear Andy say, “You’re gonna get caught.”
    I see his white grin in his dark window.
    â€œNot if you keep your voice down,” I whisper.
    â€œI don’t mean here and now. I mean over in Woodland. Spying on Melissa.”
    â€œHow did you know where I was?”
    â€œWhere else would you be at midnight on a Monday night?”
    â€œMaybe I was just taking a walk.”
    â€œYeah, a walk to Woodland Trails.”
    â€œA guy has to walk someplace.”
    â€œYou’re gonna get caught.”
    â€œI stayed in the greenway. Nobody could see me.”
    â€œI’m telling you.”
    â€œI was careful.”
    â€œSo, how is she?”
    â€œShe’s … fine.”
    â€œYou talk to her?”
    â€œNo! I just … I watched her get ready for bed.”
    â€œReally? How ready? You see her blue panties?”
    â€œShe took off her sweatshirt. She had on a tank top underneath.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œThen she closed the shades.”
    â€œJust like last time.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œJust like every time.”
    â€œI don’t know why. I mean, the whole point of living there is the privacy. Who does she think is going to be looking?”
    â€œWell, there’s you.”
    â€œShe doesn’t know that.”
    â€œWhy don’t you just ask her out? I mean, you know so much about her. How could she say no?”
    â€œShut up.” I turn my back on him and crawl through the window and close it behind me, but I can still see his grin, floating in the dark.

14
BRIDGE
    T he Madham suspension bridge is based upon the Golden Gate Bridge, which I once crossed at the age of six years and four months in a car with my parents. Of course, my model is much smaller than the original. In fact, it is a 1:800 scale model.
    As you may know, HO gauge trains are 1:87 models of the real thing, so when I finish the bridge, the train will just barely fit between the uprights. Relatively speaking, if a train that size went across the real Golden Gate Bridge it would be 120 feet tall.
    You may wonder why I didn’t build the bridge to HO scale. The reason is because it would have had to bemore than one hundred feet long. It would not have fit in the basement. I might be troubled, I might be disturbed, I might be obsessed—but I’m not crazy.
    There are five critical elements in a suspension bridge: the uprights, the anchors, the deck, the cables, and the stringers. Each element must be brought into perfect balance with each of the other four elements. If one element is too weak, the entire structure collapses.
    The towers and deck of my bridge are built of strike-anywhere matches with the heads scraped off. I do not want my bridge to spontaneously combust. I carefully scrape away all traces of phosphorus, leaving a fifty-four-millimeter-long matchstick. For the suspension cables I use orange braided nylon cord, and for the stringers I use cotton string, which I dye orange using Rit dye. Many people do not know this, but the Golden Gate Bridge is not actually golden. It is a color called International Orange.
    I have been working on the bridge for several months. It is now only a few weeks away from completion. Opening Day will be November 17. I’ve invited Andy to join me as I send a seventeen-car train across the bridge for the first time. Andy understands about me and bridges. Not everyone else is smart enough to get it.
    For example, here is what Mr. Haughton, my language arts teacher, said about bridges during the midquarter evaluation:
    â€œDouglas, I can see that you are passionate about your subject matter. Passion is very important to a writer. But maybe you could try to write on another topic?”
    â€œI could write something about the original Golden Gate Bridge.”
    â€œI was thinking you might write about something