I don’t exactly need another reminder that Raven Brooks is weird. Between the llama farm and the not-quite-a-grocery-store—not to mention the whole Golden Apple tragedy hidden in the woods—this town is bonkers.

“It’s eclectic,” Dad says as we pass a woman “walking” her dog in a baby sling.

“There’s not a mall within thirty miles!” I complain.

“The Square has at least five stores that sell clothes.”

“It’s gonna be all organic cotton and canvas stuff.” There’s a display in the natural grocer with straw fedoras and scratchy hemp sandals.

“You don’t know what it’s going to be like until you see it,” Dad says about the Square, but even he doesn’t sound convinced.

“I’m going to look like freaking Davy Crockett on the first day of school. Why don’t you just tie a piece of twine around my waist for a belt? It’s bad enough Mom swapped my pudding packs for homemade granola. I’m not bringing that in my lunch, Dad. Seriously, it’s not happening.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Dad says, looking both wounded and tickled. He pulls into a parking space in the Square and turns to me before I can escape the car.

“Where’s all this coming from, Narf?”

I think about bolting, but I see Dad’s finger on the power lock.

“I mean, I’ve barely met anyone yet,” I say. “What if—” This is always the hard part: finding a way to tell my dad that I understand why we have to start over again, that I know it’s not his fault that his job is hard to keep. It’s just that every time we move, it gets harder to be invisible.

“Remember when we moved to Redding?” I ask Dad.

He nods, listening intently.

“Remember how I wore that Redding Rocks shirt on the first day?”

“The one with the granite?” Dad smiles. A good pun is never wasted on him.

But at school, a kid asked me if I shop for my clothes at the airport. I never told Dad about that.

“It’s nothing,” is what I say to him now. “But I draw the line at puns. No clever shirts.”

Dad cocks his head to the side, but I get out of the car before he can prolong this conversation.

The Square really is a square. There’s a giant copper fountain in the middle of it: Three enormous dancing apples with long, spindly arms and legs are supposed to look like they’re playing, but the way their faces are carved makes them look almost vicious. It’s super unsettling, but no one else seems to be as bothered as I am. Little kids fling pennies into the water and balance along the low brick wall that surrounds the sculpture.

Along the perimeter of the square, shops line up side by side facing the fountain. Restaurants ranging from casual to fancy make up the corners of each side, and the shops seem to be separated by theme: a side for really little kids, then kids my age, then adults, then the sort of catchall knickknack stores my mom would say are full of “more stuff I’ll have to dust on a shelf.”

“Oooh, they have a Wellington Hammel!” Dad’s eyes sparkle against the reflection of the fountain as he gazes upon the expensive desk ornaments and massage chairs and rushes inside to join every other dad in Raven Brooks.

After twenty minutes, he’s nearly convinced himself that he needs a stress-reducing foam figurine called The Gnome, when a guy I don’t know comes up behind him.

“We’ve already got you stressed out enough for The Gnome?” he asks.

Dad turns and laughs, clapping the guy on the shoulder.

“Even if you did, it’s not like you’re paying me enough to afford anything in this place!”

Now they’re both laughing, and I see an equally uncomfortable kid lingering behind the guy who apparently knows how much money my dad isn’t making at the Raven Brooks Banner.

He and my dad seem to suddenly remember us.

“And hey! This must be Enzo,” my dad says, extending his hand to the kid, who takes it politely.

“Nice to meet you,” the kid says. Then Dad pulls me forward and presents me.

“This is Nicky.”

“Dad!” I cringe.

“Sorry, Nick. This is Nick. Narf, this is Miguel Esposito, the college roommate I told you and Mom about—the one who told me about the job.”

“We were lucky your dad was available,” says Miguel, and I can tell he’s a nice guy because he finds an easy way around my dad’s unemployment.

“Hey, Narf, I think you and Enzo are the same age. Eighth grade, right?” he asks Enzo, who nods.

“Maybe you two will share some classes,” Mr. Esposito says, and Enzo and I look at each other and shrug. Parents always say stuff like that, then look at kids like we’ll have the answers.

“If you like The Gnome, you should check out The Gremlin,” Mr. Esposito says to Dad. “Twice the price, but it’s a pen, too!”

They run off to play with their old people novelties and leave Enzo and me with exactly two things in common.

“I don’t get it,” says Enzo. “This is the same kind of garbage they sell in airplane catalogs, but Dad says those are a waste of money.”

I chuckle like I’ve ever been on an airplane before. Anywhere we’ve ever gone has been a few days’ drive away, and Dad and Mom never met a motel they didn’t think was “charming.” They’re road-trippers, through and through.

“We’re supposed to be buying me clothes,” I say, and Enzo’s nice like his dad because he doesn’t ever flick his eyes down to see how worn my shirt is.

“C’mon,” he says, walking ahead of me. “My friend’s brother works at Gear, across the Square. He’s always scoring us stuff for really cheap.”

Gear doesn’t look like the kind of place I should be shopping, but after Enzo has an exchange with the guy behind the counter who lifts his chin at me, Enzo tells me to grab a few shirts and pairs of shorts.

“Are you sure?” I ask, my embarrassment fighting it out with my ego because these clothes look normal, and they smell new, and at least I won’t be wearing a blinking neon sign saying I’M NEW! on the first day of school.

“Yeah,” says Enzo like it’s no big deal. “This is pretty much the only place to shop around here. I mean, unless you want to rock a straw hat.”

“Right. From the grocery store.”

“Dude, I tried on those shorts once. It felt like I was wearing pants made of mosquitos. I was scratching my butt for weeks. People thought I had diaper rash.”

He laughs, and holy Aliens this guy must be untouchable if he can survive a diaper rash rumor. It’s weird, too, because aside from the normal clothes and gleaming white shoes, Enzo’s just as much of a weirdo as me. It’s nothing obvious, just something a fellow weirdo knows—his smile is totally unrestrained, he walks a little too fast.

We leave the clothes at the counter for my dad to buy later and head across the Square to the Gamers Grotto. I try to ignore the dancing apples in the fountain, but they’re impossible to avoid.

“Creepy, right?” Enzo says.

“I thought it was just me.”

“I don’t know why they don’t just take it down after what happened,” he says, shaking his head.

I didn’t make the connection until now—the dancing apples are an homage to the factory that built the park that left a hole in Raven Brooks wide enough to fall through. It seems like no matter how much I try to skirt the issue that no one wants to talk about, it’s impossible not to topple down that hole. The tragedy of Golden Apple Amusement Park has clouded the entire town.

Now that I’m closer, I can see a small plaque has been added to the sculpture, a memorial protected behind glass. It’s Lucy Yi, posed against a standard school-picture backdrop, her straight black hair smoothed behind a thin headband. Her hand is propped under her chin, a gold bracelet with a gleaming apple charm dangling from the links in a painful show of irony. Below her picture reads:

The sound of girls laughing wafts over my head, and for just a second, I swear it’s coming from behind the glass of Lucy Yi’s memorial.

Then one of them says, “I dare you to go say hi,” and I look across the Square and see a group of younger girls crowded around a table at the frozen yogurt shop. The shortest one emerges, slapping one of her friends away, then brushing the hair from her face to wave to me. I recognize Mya and wave back before turning again to the fountain.

“Did you know her?” I ask Enzo. “The little girl who … ?”

Enzo looks down and nods. “Everyone did.” Then he looks up with a crooked smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, then in the direction of Mya and her friends. “Welcome to Raven Brooks, where everyone knows everyone.” Then he claps me on the shoulder like his dad did to my dad and pulls me closer. “Whether you want to know ’em or not.”

He chuckles, but I don’t think he was kidding.

“But enough about that,” he says. “Now, we game.”

He’ll get zero argument from me on that front. I may not know all there is to know about Raven Brooks or Golden Apples or expensive clothes, but I speak fluent Gaming.

Dad and Miguel lean against the coffee stand outside reliving their college days while Enzo and I fight for territory in Mortal Realm until my eyes blur. I’ve nearly forgotten that I’m the shiny new kid when I see Aaron from the corner of my eye entering the Grotto. He stalks in quietly, but I feel like the whole place comes to a standstill as soon as he steps through the door.

I lift my chin at him and give him a little half wave, but I don’t think he sees me because he just walks behind a display of remote control cars locked in a glass case.

“You know him?” Enzo asks me, and I can’t tell if he’s impressed or disappointed.

“Yeah, he lives across the street from me,” I say, watching Enzo carefully before adding, “He’s cool.”

Enzo doesn’t say anything. He just sets the remote down on the console and edges around me to look for his dad.

“You guys hang out?” Enzo asks, not looking at me.

“Yeah,” I say, knowing that’s not the right answer, and I can feel the slim chance of normality slipping away from me. The thing is, up until now, Aaron’s been the only one who actually wanted to hang out with me, and I’m not about to sell him out just because Enzo is … well, whatever Enzo is. I still can’t get a read on what’s bothering him about Aaron.

“Just watch your back around him,” Enzo says, and all the confidence he exhibited earlier seems to melt away. That’s what’s bothering him—he’s afraid of Aaron.

“What, does he kill cats or something?” I heard once that’s how you know someone’s going to be a serial killer.

“I don’t know,” Enzo says, and I swear to the aliens, he’s actually not sure.

“He has, like, three cats around his house at all times!” I say, and I can’t believe I have to convince Enzo that my new friend isn’t a serial killer. “He’s really nice,” I say, although “nice” isn’t quite how I’d describe Aaron now that I think about it. Still, he’s no Jack the Ripper.

But it’s clear to me that there’s no convincing Enzo. He’s already picking up his shopping bag and abandoning the game he was going to buy.

I follow him out the door and toward our dads, who have actual tears in their eyes from laughing so hard.

“Oh man, why has it taken us this long to get back in touch?” my dad says to Mr. Esposito, absently ruffling my hair.

“I don’t know, but I’m glad you’re here,” Mr. Esposito says, and Enzo and I scuff our shoes on the ground until the dads finally give each other a half handshake, half hug, and say they’ll see each other Monday.

“Did you find some clothes?” Dad asks, and I nod, guiding him toward Gear and away from Gamers Grotto, where I can’t see Aaron at all anymore.

“Enzo seems nice,” Dad says, and he’s right. Enzo does seem nice. But I’m not thinking about how nice Enzo is right now. I’m thinking about how afraid he seemed of Aaron, how surprised he was that I wasn’t afraid.

I pretend to be in a good mood on the way home, but I do it for Dad. I haven’t seen him like this for a long time. When I get to my room, though, I don’t even want to pull the tags off my new clothes or work on my audio manipulator (basically my coolest invention yet—to the untrained eye, it’s a simple microphone, but when the unsuspecting speaker talks into the microphone, bam! Fart noises. It’s part of my bodily functions line of inventions).

I was hoping that the trip to the Square would help me take my mind off of my bizarre night with Aaron, but between the fountain shrine to Lucy Yi and the way Enzo reacted to seeing Aaron, it’s like the universe is begging me to relive it.

I keep thinking back to the look on Enzo’s face when he saw Aaron, how he drew away from me when I told him we were friends. Sure, Aaron’s family is a little weird, and his dad almost made me have an accident on their kitchen floor, but it wasn’t Mr. Peterson who walked into the Grotto today. It wasn’t Mr. Peterson I had to convince Enzo wasn’t a serial killer. It was Aaron.

And if Enzo was afraid, it’s hard for me not to wonder if I should be afraid, too.