You’ve got to come.

Can’t.

Dude!!!

The Mighty Burl has spoken. Too dangerous.

Hold that thought . . .

Nate is still sitting on his bed with the cell phone in his hands, punching out a text, when Dodge phones.

“It won’t be too dangerous if you come,” he says without introduction.

“What does that mean?” says Nate.

“Dad thinks you’re smart. He obviously doesn’t know you as well as I do, but he’ll listen to you, man.”

“Hah!” The laugh erupts from Nate. “You don’t listen to me; why would your father?”

“Because he thinks you’ve got this, I don’t know, deep-woods Canadian wisdom. . . . You know . . .”

Nate isn’t sure if Dodge is messing with him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on, man. You know what I’m saying. Like your dad.”

And suddenly Nate feels uncomfortable, as if Dodge is saying something that’s only sort of a compliment but is something else as well. Something that is always there with Dodge. Their difference. Nate is never just Nate to him. He’s a category. The other.

“You still there?”

“Yeah. I’m just wondering why you’re such a dick.”

“Forget about it,” says Dodge. “All I’m really saying is that if you’re along for the ride, nothing bad will happen.”

“Like I’m a lucky rabbit’s foot?”

Dodge groans with frustration. “Just say yes, Numbster. It’ll be cool.”

Nate changes the subject. Asks about school, how the Wildcats’ season is going, whether Dodge asked that girl out.

“Which one?”

“The cheerleader.”

“Cindi? Man, that is so last week.”

And so on. The appeal to Nate — the demand — is dropped, but he can tell that Dodge is pissed. Then someone calls Dodge to the dinner table and he says goodbye, just like that.

“I wish you weren’t going up there,” says Nate. But the line is already dead.

And then, two weeks later, Dodge is dead. His father is dead, and skinny little Patrick, always with the puffer for his asthma, is dead. And Nate can’t help thinking if he’d been there, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe Art Hoebeek would have listened to him. Right.

There is an e-mail from Dodge, two days before the Hoebeeks set off from Indiana.

Numbster — I mean Nate the Great — this is your last chance! The once-in-a-lifetime offer is still on the table. A chance to hang out with the one and only Dodge Hoebeek one mo’ time before the winter sets in. Seriously, man, here’s the deal. Dad knows the weather could get bad. He’s got a backup plan. We get there and if it’s lousy, we leave the fridge at Sanctuary Cove with old man La Cloche. We stay there the night, take the Budd back to Sudbury the next day. We don’t do the big fridge thing unless it’s perfect, right? So come on. Deal?