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Lily.
    We’re all thinking the same thing.
    What are we doing here?
    “Any of you any good at algebra?” Mr. Taggart’s groggy voice asks.
    He’s asking us, the ones sitting in class during the summer.
    Brick raises his hand, which only gets a dismissive nod from the teacher.
    “Do they use algebra in Call of Duty ?” Brick asks.
    Several people laugh as Mr. Taggart gives him a dead person’s look.
    “Very funny, Franklin. You’re gonna need that humor in prison.”
    “Trying my best, sir, ” Brick replies.
    This is gonna be a long class.
    After class, Harris seems to remember the visit from Sheriff Wells and asks me about it as we’re walking out.
    “It was nothing.”
    “Have anything to do with Oli?”
    So he’s heard. Of course he’s heard.
    “Where’d you hear about that?”
    “Everybody’s talking about it on Facebook and Twitter.”
    “Talking about what?” a voice out of nowhere asks.
    Little Miss Sunshine strolls up to us, still playing with her iPhone. Lily hasn’t said much to me today. I felt like a doorknob sitting in front of her. A doorknob that nobody’s bothering to turn and open. And I specifically tried looking a little nicer today, whatever that means since doorknobs never look particularly interesting.
    “This kid at our school drowned in a lake,” Harris says.
    Lily stops texting or doing whatever she’s doing and stares at him. “Seriously?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s awful. Did you guys know him?”
    Harris and I shake our heads. She brushes back the curly golden locks and looks genuinely upset.
    “How old was he?”
    “Seventeen,” Harris says.
    “Just a kid,” she says, staring down the hallway and lost for a moment. “Wow.”
    We’re heading out of the school on another gloriously sunny day. I’m getting ready for the regular routine of telling them I’ll see them later when Lily says, “Now I’m seriously bummed out.”
    She stops Harris as if she’s had a bright idea. She looks like a model today in her bright pink top and dark pink shorts.
    “You want to go to lunch today? Do you have time?”
    “I don’t work until three,” Harris says. He works at a golf resort not far from Asheville.
    “What about you, biker boy?”
    “I don’t have a job,” I say.
    “Great. Let’s go somewhere, then. My treat. I don’t exactly have a job either. But I have money.”
    I nod and realize I have no idea where Lily lives or what her story is.
    “Want to follow us, then?” she asks. “Harris and I will figure out a place to go.”
    I nod. As Harris and Lily walk over to his car, I see Brick coming up behind me.
    “Puppy dogs.”
    I smile and nod, not knowing what he meant by it.
    “You keep sniffing and you’ll get your nose cut off,” Brick says to me in his good-old-boy accent. He makes himself laugh as he keeps walking away from the parking lot and down the hill.
    I guess he doesn’t drive to summer school.
    As I follow the shiny sports car that looks like it just got washed and waxed, I’m wondering why Brick thinks we’re puppy dogs.
    And why he thinks we might get our noses cut off.
    I think of Jared, my so-called cousin. All he ever wanted was to keep tabs on me and fill me with wrong information.
    Don’t worry, Brick. I’m not trusting anybody again. No way.
    We drive fifteen minutes away from the school, so far that I seriously start wondering if they’re playing a joke on me. We get off the main highway and head into a small town called Flat Rock. They eventually stop at a smokehouse that looks pretty busy for a Tuesday. It takes us a few minutes to order and then take our food outside to sit at a table.
    Lily wears large shades that seem to lose themselves in her windblown hair. She’s ordered fries and a barbecue beef sandwich as large as her head. Something tells me she doesn’t eat like this every day.
    “So what’s your story, Chris?” she asks me after we’ve started eating.
    Harris sits next to her in a pair of mirrored