Boy21 Read Online Free PDF

you.”
    “It’s okay,” Coach says. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. There will be time for talking.”
    All the adults exchange glances, and I’m glad that they don’t glance at me.
    “You like the food?” Mrs. Allen says.
    “Yes. Thank you,” I say, and then it’s just the sounds of knivesand forks scraping against the plates, chewing, swallowing, glasses of water being sipped and set down on wood.
    Boy21 keeps his eyes on his food until it’s gone, which is when he says, “May I take Finley back up to my room?”
    “Are you finished eating?” Mrs. Allen asks me.
    I nod, even though I’m not, and say, “Thanks.”
    “You boys go have your fun,” Coach says, and then I’m back in Boy21’s room watching him arrange glow-in-the-dark sticker constellations.
    “You don’t talk much, do you?” Boy21 asks, looking over his shoulder.
    “No.”
    “Did something happen to you?” he asks.
    Truth is, many things have happened to me, both good and bad, stuff that would take a lot of words to explain, too many words for me.
    There’s a part of me that wants to discuss my past, why I don’t talk much, outer space even, everything, but it’s like my mind is a fist and it’s always clenched tight, trying to keep the words in.
    Boy21 faces me and says, “Do you believe I’m from outer space?”
    I shrug.
    “You will when I ascend, but until then I’ll need someone to help me complete my mission here on Earth. You seem like you are quite emotional, and I am very interested in studying emotions. Are you trustworthy?”
    I nod, because I’m generally trustworthy, but I also smile, because I’m not emotional at all. At least, I try not to be.
    He smiles back.
    “Will you show me the ways of your culture?” he asks, and then adds, “Please.”
    “You playing basketball this year?”
    Boy21 turns his back on me and says, “I am programmed to be an excellent basketball player. No Earthling can beat me. But I think I’ll be long gone before the season rolls around. I’ll be back in the cosmos well before the time period that you Earthlings call November.”
    I feel relieved when he says this because if he’s gone by November, it means he’ll miss basketball season, and then I remind myself how crazy this whole situation is.
    He’s absolutely nuts.
    There’s no way he’d be able to get through the demands of an organized basketball season, especially claiming to be from outer space. Basketball is a game of rules that you must submit to for the good of the team, and Boy21 is already not playing by the rules.
    I start to think about what’s going to happen to Russell if he pretends to be from outer space once school starts.
    At lunch he’ll be relegated to my table. Students will dump carrots on his plate.
    I don’t like the way things are in Bellmont.
    “You can’t tell people you’re from outer space,” I say.
    “Why not?” he says with a genuinely curious look on his face. “Do people enjoy hearing mistruths in this sector of Earth?”
    Bellmont’s too complicated for me to explain in a sentence. The drugs, the violence, the racial tension, the Irish mob—howdo you explain who runs the town when you could get killed just for saying the words
Irish mob
? I keep my mouth shut.
    Boy21 faces me and says, “Why do you care about what happens to
me
, Earthling?”
    I shrug, but then I say, “I guess I just sort of care about
everyone.
”
    He smiles at me—I know this will sound weird but his expression sort of warms my chest, removes the jabbing finger from my throat; his teeth sparkle and wink—and then he returns to his glow-in-the-dark stickers.
    I sit down on the floor and watch him arrange constellations. He peels off the little dots of two-sided tape, places a sticky dot in the center of each star, places the star on the end of his forefinger, and then presses it onto the wall or ceiling. He hops into the air like Superman to affix the stars above him, and lands