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door was going to keep out anything important. Turn it around, I could hear Paul saying, all the time grinning. Imagine yourself into compassion.
    I sat there on my bed hating everything. I hated my father and his ideas. I hated Paul for growing up. I hated this town and Smitty Tibbs and my homeroom teacher and every other uncomfortable thing in the world. But most of all, I hated losing Caulder. Because I knew I was going to. People like him are too good for people like me. It had just been a matter of time till he found out the truth.
    But if I'd known Caulder well enough, I could have saved myself a lot of soul suffering.
     
    It was just after that, Caulder decided it would be very good for us to start studying together. He had come over after his family supper and spread his books all over our dining room table, settling right in. The next night, James and Charlie drifted in, then Caulder's sisters, Kaitlin and Melissa, and pretty soon, there wasn't much room left at that table.
    When we were all there, the house didn't seem so empty. The study sessions spilled over into the weekends, and then the six of us started doing things together—roller skating and bowling and stuff. We made a religion out of Friday nights at the university's Classic Films Society—old movies are another one of the Christianson obsessions—and every Sunday, we all went to Caulder's church.
    “It's like having a big family,” Charlie panted one day, throwing himself down onto the grass next to me. “Which is good, considering we actually do seem to be orphans.” He and James had been playing badminton in the back with the girls until James and Kaitlin started arguing over some point of rule.
    “I want to go home,” I said, not bothering to lift my chin off the back of my hand.
    “Not me,” Charlie said, and rolled over on his back. “I love these trees. Have you noticed? The leaves are starting to turn. There's the thinnest line of yellow just starting on the edges. How long does it take, do you think, for the whole tree to turn? This whole street of trees. Ginny, it's going to be beautiful. We never had anything like that back home.
    “Autumn,” he went on, like he was tasting the word. “I've said it a million times, but I never knew what it meant before. Kind of scary, huh? You have to wonder how many other things you think you know, but you don't. I love this feeling in the air, this edge, like something is about to happen.”
    James was calling him. “I gotta go,” he said, taking a gentle swipe at me.
    I squinted up at the leaves, the sun coming down through a million tiny green stained-glass windows. I couldn't see any yellow till I stood up and took a single leaf in my hand. Charlie was right about that. You just had to look.
    Caulder came out on his porch and leaned over the railing, one hand shading his eyes. “You seen the girls?” he called.
    “In the back,” I told him.
    He nodded and waved. “Want to go over to Tibbs's?” he yelled, grinning.
    “Not right now, thanks,” I said, batting my eyes at him over clenched teeth.
    “Later then,” he said cheerfully, and he disappeared back into his house.
    “In your dreams,” I told him once he was gone.
    One day very soon after that, Mrs. Shein, who believes in being cheerful instead of merciful, assigned us what she called a simple review problem—one of those totally cryptic geometric proofs that you find triple starred at the end of a chapter. One look at it, and I knew I was dead.
    I worked on it for hours that night. Caulder, Mr. Math Whiz, was no help at all—not because he couldn't solve it, mind you. Because he couldn't explain how he solved it. Caulder finally gave up completely, having chewed halfway through his pencil. But then something dawned in his face, and he started grinning. “You've got it,” I said hopefully.
    “I surely do,” he said, and he stood up. “I know exactly where we can get help with this.” I felt a terrible stab of