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his way to San Francisco. Maybe I should have been angry about working all year for nothing, but I wasn’t. I went over and let Mrs. Kessler tell me about the way Eugene had taught himself to read the dictionary when he was two and a half, even though I’d heard the story about a million times before. Mrs. Kessler had a weird look on her face, and it made me think of my mother, just after my father had left her. It made me think that summer would never be the same, not now and not ever.
    I guess deep inside I did believe everything that had happened was my fault. I must have, because sometime between the moment when I got to the Kesslers’ and the moment when I left, I told Eugene’s mother I’d be glad to take care of the owl until Eugene returned. Of course, Mrs. Kessler was delighted to get rid of the owl. She got down on her knees and helped me coax it into its cage. I walked home carefully, trying not to jostle the owl, but as soon as I set the cage down on our living room floor, I realized my mistake. Somehow, the owl looked much bigger in our house. Its feet were as big as our Labrador retriever’s. I couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as Eugene’s horrible pet. I went to the kitchen and telephoned everyone I knew to announce my suspension from school, but it wasn’t the same as talking to Eugene. Still, I talked for a long time, long enough so that Jason was the one who discovered that the owl had killed every one of his hamsters. Either the cage had been left open or the owl knew some tricks I wasn’t aware of. Frankly, its method of escape didn’t matter. By the time Jason walked into his bedroom, the owl was sitting on the air conditioner, distressed and thwarted, its feathers ruffled; although it had managed to kill all the hamsters, it still couldn’t get to them through the meshing of their cages.
    My brother had hoped to finish his experiment before leaving for college; now he didn’t have to worry. It was over. If the owl hadn’t belonged to Eugene, I think Jason would have killed it. Instead, he went out and bought six live chicks at the pet store. But the owl wouldn’t eat. We watched over it for days and then weeks, but the owl never really recovered. Maybe the heat was what caused its feathers to drop out, one by one, as it perched on the air conditioner. Or maybe it was only longing for someone who wasn’t afraid to let it fly above the poplars and crab apples, searching backyards, a streak of lightning in our dark sky.

Gretel
    It was a bad summer, and we all knew it. We liked to phrase it that way, as if what was happening was an aberration—a single season of pain and doubt—instead of all-out informing people that our lives were falling apart, plain and simple as pie. I knew too much for someone who was fifteen, and with the way my luck was running, I’d probably soon know more. I was no longer one of those human beings who blithely assume that everything can’t go wrong at the same time. Even my best friend Jill, who was without a doubt the most cheerful person I’d ever met, shook her head and said “Wow” whenever I told her what was going on in our family. She sat cross-legged on my bed, obsessively eating M&M’s, and informed me that in light of my family’s bad luck it was only natural for me to experience a crisis of confidence. But Jill was good-natured and liked to see the best in every situation. Frankly, I didn’t see the difference between a crisis of confidence and a nervous breakdown.
    At least I was in the right place. People in our town had nervous breakdowns all the time. It was one of Franconia’s claims to fame. The luncheonette was a regular hotbed of lunatics. Not that you could tell by looking at them. They appeared normal enough at first glance, but if you kept on looking you’d see that the woman who had ordered black coffee was crying hot tears into her cup,