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walked off the field and into the school. It was almost lunch anyway.

    In science class, Mr. Wisner had just discussed the sad plight of Pluto, the smallest and most remote planet, which had long languished on the periphery of the universe, and now was a planet no more. It was now just some rock in space.
    Max was staring up at the model universe dangling from the ceiling when something Mr. Wisner was saying caught his attention.
    “Of course,” he was saying, “the sun is the center of our solar system. It’s why all of the planets are here. It creates day and night and the warmth of its sunlight is what makes our planet inhabitable. Of course, the sun won’t always be here to warm us. Like all things, the sun will die. When it does, it’ll first expand, and will envelop all the planets around it, including the Earth, which it will consume rapidly …”
    Max didn’t like the sound of any of this. He looked around. None of the other students seemed to be listening closely.
    Mr. Wisner continued: “The sun, after all, is just fuel, burning ferociously, and when our particular star -- a painfully average one, I should say -- runs out of fuel, our solar system will go dark, permanently ...”
    Max had a sick feeling in his stomach. There was something about the words
go dark permanently
that didn’t sit well with him. This was the very worst lesson Max had ever heard in school, and there were fifteen minutes left on the clock. Mr. Wisner turned and pulled down a map of the world.
    “But before that, the human race will likely fall to one of any number of calamities -- self-inflicted or not: war, radical climate change, meteors, spectacular floods and earthquakes, superviruses ...”
    Now he turned back to the students, with a look on his face that was almost cheerful.
    “Wow, I sound like a downer, don’t I! Look on the bright side -- you and everyone you know will be long gone by then! When the sun is extinguished and the world is swallowed like a grape by the collapsing fabric of space, we’ll be long forgotten in the endless continuum of time. The human race is, after all, just a sigh in the long sonorous sleep of this world and all worlds to come. Okay, that’s the end for today. Have a great weekend.”

CHAPTER VIII

    Max was often the last one picked up, but it didn’t matter so much. He was bored most of the time he was at A Spoonful of Lovin’ Afterschool Centre, so it was no big deal to be bored while waiting for his mom to pick him up. He sat on the steps of the porch, listening for his mom’s car to gag and shimmy around the corner.
    He’d been going to this center for a year. The previous one he went to had gotten too uptight about money, his mom said, so one day he’d switched to this one, which, she said, had a more
humane
payment plan.
    The man in charge of A Spoonful of Lovin was short and slight and named Perry. He was trying to grow a beard, but he looked like a mangy dog; none of the growth areas on his face connected.
    When Max’s mom pulled in, Perry waved and walked to his own car. “Good night, Max.”
    Max didn’t run to his mom’s car and didn’t walk slowly, either. In this way the walk seemed to last weeks.
    Max got into the car and closed the door. He sat in the front seat because he got the front once a week.
    “Hey Maxie,” his mom said, rubbing his knee.
    “Hey,” he said.
    “Hi Mr. Perry,” she said, waving. “That’s gonna cost me twenty dollars,” she said to Max as she pulled away. Every minute late cost a dollar. That was the rule.
    Claire was in the back, her feet propped up on the back of Max’s seat. She didn’t even look Max’s way, so he said nothing to her. It was obvious that neither of them would back down and apologize, and Max guessed it would be like a hundred other fights they’d had: it would be placed, precariously, in the crowded closet of all they’d done to each other, safe behind the door until someone turned the knob again.
    Now that