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father, John Baker the First, and lived the life of a farmer for the first nine years of my life. Then Hitler started bombing England and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and all H-E-double-hockey-sticks broke loose. He joined the navy and shipped out before Christmas that year. He left me in charge, giving me the navigator ring and saying, Take good care of your mother . I didn’t see him again until my mother died.
    “We’re part of the same constellation, your father and I,” Mom said that day. “It’s just not one you find in any textbook.”
    “That’s a nice story, Mom, but it’s not exactly going to help me find my way out of the woods,” I told her.
    “Sometimes it’s best not to see your whole path laid out before you. Let life surprise you, Jackie. There are more stars out there than just the ones with names. And they’re all beautiful.” Listening to my mother was a lot like reading poetry. I had to stretch my mind to make sense of what she was trying to get across. And even when I did understand, sometimes I tried not to let on.
    Gradually, I realized that the click-clack of chalk had stopped and been filled with the white noise of the record player. Sitting on the floor with my back against a file cabinet, I must have nodded off. Looking up, I saw the chalkboard full of numbers streaming out from the original 3.14. Thenumbers, Early had said, were a mother, a father, and their son, Pi.
    Had I really heard this story or just dreamed it? Either way, it was a silly notion that these numbers told a story. And Early, that strangest of boys, was now sitting on his cot beside the record player, but instead of watching it spin, he was busy tying a rope in an elaborate knot, so engrossed in his work, it was as if that rope and its knots also had a mesmerizing story to tell.
    “Um, sorry,” I said, clearing my throat. “I must have dozed off.”
    “That’s okay,” said Early without looking up. “The next numbers aren’t as good as the beginning. Pi just sails on the open seas awhile before anything happens again. I don’t think you’d like that part.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Well, thanks for the clothes. I’d better get back to the dorm.”
    Early was too engrossed in his rope and knot making to notice me leave.
    I didn’t see Early for a week, not that I went looking for him. My mother would not be happy about that. She had a knack for pairing me up with every misfit and newcomer. Jack would love to have you come over to play , she’d say without having heard any such thing from me. For my tenth birthday party, she said I could invite six boys to the bowling alley. But there ended up being seven, because Melvin Trumboldt had just moved to town and supposedly didn’t know a soul. I fought her on that point, as Melvin got in trouble the first day of school for flushing all the toilets inthe boys’ bathroom one after another, and I knew he was well acquainted with the principal.
    But she made me invite him anyway, and he turned out not to be so bad. Especially when he gave up the name Melvin and started going by Flush. I got sucked into his antics a couple of times, but Mom could never get too mad, as she was the one who’d forced us into being friends.
    The point is, she wouldn’t be too happy with me not inviting Early to join a table at lunch or play ball after school. But my mom wasn’t here to watch over me. Besides, I was the new kid this time, and people weren’t exactly banging on my door. Until about five o’clock one morning when someone was doing just that. Banging loud and insistent.
    I was still coming out of a hard sleep when the pounding continued on the next door over, and the next one.
    “Let’s go, gentlemen. Crew call,” an adult voice boomed.
    I poked my head out the door. It was Mr. Blane, the math teacher. It was a school day, but no one had said anything about five-a.m. math class. He was dressed in gray sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt with the Morton Hill