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like, Can I kill you? I have no doubt that, to her, we’re the rocker guy and the goth girl.
School administrators have dreams about shoving kids like us off cliffs—dreams
from which they wake up smiling.
    “Hi, Mrs. Evans. How are you?” Lauren offers a warm smile.
    Cranky Mrs. Evans frowns. “Do I know you?”
    “You don’t remember me?”
    Mrs. Evans’ expression softens a bit. “Oh, no. I’m
sorry—”
    “Cassandra Delvechio! I went to school here. Seriously,
you don’t remember?”
    “Not exactly,” Mrs. Evans says. “I mean, your name does
seem familiar but—”
    “My grandfather.”
    Mrs. Evans cocks her head. “I’m sorry?”
    “Grandpa Anthony!”
    Lauren has managed to make a woman evidently made of ice
start to blush with discomfort. Mrs. Evans glances down the hall as if help
should arrive.
    “He’s the maintenance engineer,” Lauren says.
    “Maintenance engineer?” Mrs. Evans’ face continues to
grow red.
    I clear my throat, catch her eye, and pantomime mopping
the floor behind Lauren’s back.
    Mrs. Evans’ eyes shoot back to Lauren. “Oh,you mean Old Anth—Mr.
Delvechio. Are you here to see him?”
    Lauren nods happily. Again the friendly smile.
    “He’s here, I think, somewhere.” Mrs. Evans swivels her
head as if she can see through walls.
    Lauren takes her phone from her pocket. “Gym,” she says.
“He called me. He left his medicine in my mother’s car.”
    “Okay, I see. He must be in the gym. Do you know how—I
mean, you must still know how to get there.”
    “Of course,” Lauren says. “Thanks!”
    We walk down the hall and around the corner.
    “I don’t remember her,” I say.
    Lauren shrugs. “Never saw her before.”
    “How did you know her name?”
    “Name tag,” she says. “Must be a volunteer. You need to
be more observant. Did you notice how she didn’t even know my grandfather’s
name?”
    “He’s not really your grandfather.”
    “Just a technicality. In that scenario, he was my
grandfather and she didn’t know him. Why? Because he’s the janitor. Snob. Like
she’s better than my grandfather. I can’t stand people like that.”
    The funny thing is, she really does seem pissed off. At
the same time, I have to agree. What’s with people like Mrs. Evans?
    Strangely, we actually do find Anthony in the gym—where,
as it turns out, he’s mopping the floor. Maybe that isn’t so strange. What’s
strange and what isn’t seems to be changing rapidly. Of course, Lauren knew her
grandfather-not-grandfather would be in the gym. After all, he just called her,
right? I half-expect Old Anthony to run over and hug her when he becomes aware
of us but that doesn’t happen. Instead, he squints in our direction.
    But at least he smiles. Ten points ahead of Mrs. Evans
already. “You two lost or something? Nothing going on here this afternoon, that
I know of.”
    Lauren steps closer to me and whispers, “You’re on,
Pajama Boy.”
    It takes me a second but then I say, “Hi, Mr. Delvechio.”
    “Hello,” he says.
    “Um, my name is Jack Atkinson.”
    “Brilliant start,” Lauren whispers.
    Anthony studies me for a moment, sets his mop into its
bucket and walks toward us. “Jack Atkinson. Sure, I remember you.”
    Not what I expect at all. Why would he remember me?
    Anthony smiles again. Surprisingly white teeth gleam
beneath his gray moustache. “You made that poster, right?”
    Amazing. Somehow, Anthony remembers that about me. It
seems like so long ago but, before becoming a musician, I’d been an aspiring
artist. My tools of the trade at the time were all produced by Crayola and my
enthusiasm greatly exceeded my skill but I’d still contributed. One year, a
poster I made featuring happy, smiling kids won the annual “School Reflections”
art contest and got taped to a wall in the cafeteria.
    “You remember my poster?”
    “Sure, I always read the kids’ names. Every year.”
Anthony taps his forefinger against his temple. “But yours,