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dark green with tall tires and reminded him of the army HUMVEES he used to ride in with his dad. Shah was lean and brown, with curly hair that made Helen woozy. He was nothing like Sanjar. None of the Zahedis were like Sanjar. They all dressed like real Americans and acted like normal people. All except Sanjar with his robes, Qur’an, and funny hats.
    Shah looked up and waved, then scanned the soccer jersey Hector was wearing. “ Bayern today, huh?”
    “They won this weekend,” he said with little enthusiasm. “So what’s up with you?”
    “My mom said if I washed the Hummer, she’d let me take it out sometime.” Shah was a junior in high school and about to get his license. “How about you?”
    Hector shrugged. “Flunking algebra.”
    Shah stood up straight. “Ouch! Hey, if you need any help, I’m pretty good. And my dad, he’s a real whiz.”
    Hector forced a smile and said, “I’ll let you know.” Algebra class at home? he thought to himself. From a Zahedi? Not likely. And there was no way he’d ever tell his mom about the offer. She’d make him to do it. Hector thought his mom should have more sense. Instead, she acted like the Zahedis were her favorite neighbors. She didn’t have to hate them, but why was she always trying so hard to act like they were friends?
    Sanjar popped out of the front door like a Jack-in-the-box. Somehow he always beat Hector home, and then waited for him. He saw Hector and started toward him, still wearing his robe and fez. “Hey, Hector,” Sanjar called. “Wait a minute!”
    “I gotta go,” Hector called back, feeling even less enthusiastic about Sanjar than usual. “My, uh, Mom’s waiting for me. I got a doctor’s appointment.”
    “That’s not Mom’s car,” puffed Halie, flagging behind him.
    He sprinted up the steps and burst through the door. “Mom, I’m home!” he exclaimed, knowing it would annoy his sister.
    Helen leaned around the kitchen corner and glared at him. She was talking on the house phone while texting on her cell phone. “I’m not your mother,” she announced. “If I were, I’d paddle your butt ‘til you couldn’t sit down.”
    Hector turned and shook his rear end at her, then said in a terrible, fake English accent, “I love it when you talk dirty.”
    “Oh, grow up,” she said, and went back to her connectivity.
    Hector frowned. Halie and Helen both looked like their father – light complected. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. And with its cliques, curbs, rules, and shiny cars, he suspected they preferred this upscale neighborhood to the drab base housing they had lived in while Dad was alive . But Hector hated it here. He missed his old friends. Missed his old school. Missed his old soccer team. Missed the army. These people just didn’t understand him and he didn’t understand them.
    He threw his backpack on a chair. At least his mother wasn’t home yet. It put off the inevitable. He’d have to tell her about his algebra grade. She’d want to take him back to the shrink and tell him the Omega Wars “therapy” wasn’t working. They’d try to give him more pills to make his brain go to sleep. He wasn’t going to take any.
    Hector stood still and listened intently, but didn’t hear the television. So he peeked around the corner into the den and saw the chair in which Pappous usually sat. It was empty. Hector nodded approval, snatched up his backpack, and darted up the stairs to his room, thankful that his mother had forbidden video games for the afternoon. Now, he had an excellent excuse for not doing his homework. After checking his status on Facebook, he changed into shorts for riding his bicycle but stopped at his window, which looked out onto Sanjar’s yard. His classmate was there, carrying a small sack across the backyard. Hector watched him. Sanjar stopped at a compost pile at the back of their yard, dumped the bag, and stirred it in with a rake.
    “Probably a body in there,” Hector joked to himself, except he