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Talk about awkward.
    “Looks like Halloween is early this year,” my grandfather says, gesturing to a group of goth boys standing in line. I find myself looking for Raj, but he’s not there.
    A sweet-looking old lady pushing an equally elderly man in a wheelchair passes us. The man is hunched over and holding a cane. He’s wearing dark polyester pants, a button-up shirt, a navy-blue blazer, and loafers with dark socks.
    He’s dressed just like my grandfather.
    “Do you see that, Ellie? Growing old is a terrible disease. Things you take for granted, you lose. Your ability to walk. Your vision. Your hearing. Even being able to go to the bathroom.”
    “Huh?”
    He gives me a knowing look. “Everything falls apart when you get old. Believe me, you don’t want to know how many times I used to get up during the night to pee.”
    I nod my head in agreement. That is way too much information.
    “But that’s not even the worst of it. They stick you away in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities just because you’re old.”
    Kind of like middle school.
    “Then do you know what happens?” He pausesdramatically. “Everybody around you starts dying! Heart attacks! Strokes! Cancer! People you’ve known your whole life are just gone! People you love! Can you imagine how painful that is?”
    I think of Brianna.
    There’s a chorus of laughter from a bunch of kids as a boy kicks his skateboard in the air.
    “I’d rather be dead than old,” he declares.
    Then he crumples the Raisinets box.
    “I’m still hungry,” he says.

Things are a little different with my grandfather living with us. The pullout couch in the den is permanently pulled out, and our antique bookshelves have been emptied and turned into an open dresser. The whole room has a gamy, boy-sock, locker-room smell. My mother has taken to spraying air freshener when he isn’t looking.
    My grandfather has a few quirks. He’s always ready to go somewhere a good half hour before it’stime to leave. He drinks a cup of hot tea every day because it’s “good for digestion.” He has a thing about the trash.
    “You should put the trash cans out at night,” he tells my mom.
    “I like to do it in the morning,” she says.
    “What if you forget?”
    My mother grits her teeth. “I won’t forget.”
    “You might,” he says. “And you’ll end up with two weeks of trash in your cans. Then you’ll have a real problem.”
    There’s no need to try to figure out what he really means, the way there sometimes is with girls; he’s blunt. And he always does what he says he will, so when he doesn’t show up at the end of the school day, I start to get nervous.
    I’m waiting for him at our usual meeting spot—the flagpole in front of the school. The stream of kids rushing by slows to a trickle, but he’s still nowhere in sight. I know he wouldn’t just leave me here. Then I remember Nicole talking about old people wandering off. Even though my grandfatherhas a teenager’s body, he still has a seventy-six-year-old brain.
    I check by his locker and his last class of the day, but nothing. Now I’m getting really worried, so I go to one of the boys’ bathrooms and shout in the door.
    “Melvin?”
    Raj walks out.
    “I think you have the wrong bathroom,” he says lightly.
    “Is Melvin in there?”
    “Uh, you want me to check?”
    “Will you?” I ask.
    He’s back in a moment. He shakes his head. “Nope, no Melvin.”
    “Where is he?” I ask. Something like panic fills me.
    Raj says, “I’ll help you look for him. He’s around here somewhere, I’m sure.”
    Raj checks all the boys’ bathrooms and the locker room, but he’s nowhere.
    It’s only when we’re going past my locker that I see it: a note sticking to the metal.
    I’m in detention.
    —Melvin
    Raj offers to wait with me. We sit on a bench outside the detention room. He’s fun to talk to.
    “Your cousin’s a little strange,” he says.
    I look at him.
    “I mean, the way he dresses