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sticking up sideways in the back, and he’s got a girl dangling off each arm. All three of them look as if they’ve been up all night, and they all start laughing hysterically when they see Andrea and me sitting on the bed staring at them.
    â€œHuh,” he snorts, stumbling forward until the girl on his left has to catch him and hold him up. “I guess this
isn’t
the shower. Hey . . .” Leaning forward, he screws his face up into a squinting, cockeyed stare. “Wait a second. You’re that new kid from Bodkins’s class, right? The missionary kid?”
    That’s when I recognize him—the loud snorer from English Lit. I’m still trying to remember his name when he lets go of the girls and flounders forward with outstretched arms, flinging himself across Andrea’s room. I’m not sure where he thinks he’s headed, but he ends up in the corner, wrestling with her cello case.
    â€œI’ve always wanted to try one of these.” He grins, holding up the case and fumbling with the clasps. “It’s like a giant ukulele, right?”
    â€œLeave it alone, Brandt,” Andrea says, reaching for him, but he shoves her away and pops open the case. The cello falls out and hits the floor with a twangy crash. Still grinning, the guy grabs it up off the floor. In the doorway, the two girls are shrieking with laughter like this is the funniest thing they’ve ever seen, as he starts plucking and strumming the strings with his fingers, belting out the Bill Withers classic “Ain’t No Sunshine” at the top of his lungs. Strings snap and break.
    â€œQuit it!” Andrea lunges for the cello, but the guy moves at the last second, and—accidentally or on purpose—her hand makes contact with his face with a sharp whack.
    All at once, the fun comes to a screeching halt. The guy glares at her, and I can see the red imprint of her hand on his cheek. He picks up the cello by the neck and slams it down onto the floor, then raises one foot and stomps on it with his cowboy boot. It splinters, pieces of polished wood flying in every direction.
    â€œHey, whoa,” I say, rising from the bed, but that’s as far as I get before Kid Boxer Shorts swings around and drives his elbow into my stomach, leaving me doubled over and sucking air into parts of my body that I didn’t realize even needed oxygen. Already I can tell that it’s going to be a while before I can speak in a normal voice. When I manage to straighten up, I see Andrea just standing there, staring at what he’s done. Even the girls in the doorway have stopped laughing.
    â€œYou like that?” he says. “Huh? Was that good for you?” He glowers at the broken pieces of the cello. “Maybe next time you’ll dial it down a little when somebody’s just having a laugh, right?”
    â€œMr. Rush?”
    It’s a female voice coming from the doorway, and I look up to see that the two girls have vanished and been replaced by a tall, severe-looking house matron standing just outside the room. She’s dressed in a black suit and skirt, with iron-colored hair and a sharp, beaklike nose. She looks like she could kick all of our butts. Emily Dickinson meets Angie Dickinson, back in her
Police Woman
days, at least. I’ve caught the reruns on late-night TV.
    â€œWhat exactly is going on?” she demands. “What on earth . . .” Her eyes flick to me, then to Andrea, and back to the cello smasher. “What are you doing here?”
    â€œJust having some fun,” the guy mumbles, weaving his way to the door so that the woman has to step aside to keep him from crashing into her. Unbelievably, she does just that, allowing him to walk away.
    â€œMr. Rush,” she says again, this time to his back. “I’m sending you to Dr. Melville’s office for disciplinary action, right away. And
you
—” She points in my