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creaked against each other. Down by the road, in the tall stands of grass, there were mice rustling, night birds chirping away like spinning gears.
    I put my pillow over my head to shut out the sound. The noises from the yard were muffled, and I wondered if this was what things sounded like to Roswell. To anyone who wasn't me. He could walk into class and not get distracted by the rustle of paper or the ventilation system. I had to remember not to flinch when someone closed a door or dropped a book, in case the sound hadn't been loud enough to startle anyone else.
    This was life in Gentry--going to school every day, blending into a world where everyone was happier to ignore the things that didn't fit, always willing to look away as long as you did your part.
    Otherwise, how could they go on living their neat suburban lives?
    Maybe it wasn't that hard. Kids died. They got sick and then sicker, and no one could figure out what was wrong. Someone somewhere lost a son or daughter. Maybe they measured pollution or blamed it on the groundwater. Lead, maybe, or toxic seepage from the slag heap.
    Natalie Stewart was just another casualty, buried in the Welsh Street graveyard with my dad standing over her, and that was a sad thing. I knew the script, the normal responses, but when I tried to feel some kind of sorrow or grief, even the polite kind, I just saw Tate sitting alone in the cafeteria. And when I thought of her there, the feeling I got wasn't sadness, it was loneliness. When I pictured the circle of empty seats around her, I wasn't mourning for her sister. It was just the same dull ache I felt every day.
    The simple truth is that you can understand a town. You can know and love and hate it. You can blame it, resent it, and nothing changes. In the end, you're just another part of it.

CHAPTER FIVE

    THE SCARLET LETTER

    F riday was chilly and gray. The blood-draw station had been cleared away, but I was still feeling kind of rickety and made it a point not to go in the cafeteria. In the atrium at the main entrance, rain coursed down the windows so that the glass looked like it was melting.
    I spent the morning avoiding things. Crowds and conversations and anyone who might ask me why I was wandering around like a zombie--so, mostly Roswell--but by fourth hour, I was running out of excuses for my lack of school supplies and had to go by my locker. It wasn't something I was looking forward to.
    Freak was gone, though. Instead, there was a weird spiral pattern, covered in thin, snaking lines. The paint had been scraped away in a kind of spiderweb, leaving a network of bare metal that radiated out from what had been one accusatory word inlaid with blood. Some of the areas had been shaded in, black in places and a thick lumpy white in others.
    "We fixed your locker," Danny said, coming up behind me.
    Drew nodded and held up a marker and a bottle of Wite-Out.
    I studied the tangle of spirals and circles. At the outer edge of the design, correction fluid had been carefully applied over the marker, then scratched away so the ink showed through in ghostly corkscrews. For a project limited by preexisting vandalism and involving only Sharpie and Wite-Out, it was nice work.
    Danny leaned his elbow on my shoulder. "We weren't trying to squash your personal expression or anything. We just thought it might be a bad move to brand yourself too aggressively too early. It might, I don't know, set the wrong tone ."
    They both looked resolutely blank, like they were trying not to look too pleased with themselves. Drew was tossing the bottle of Wite-Out in the air and catching it again. They stood on either side of me and waited for my reaction.
    I wanted to do something to show how relieved I was, how grateful, but all I said was, "Thanks."
    Danny punched me. "Don't thank us . You're the one who owes the school sixty bucks to get it repainted."

    If it hadn't been obvious yesterday, Tate Stewart was the new point of interest. She stalked through the