The Gene Forrester Jail is the ugliest building in Town. Its concrete facade is covered in black soot as though a fire once engulfed the Gene, but there was no fire because fires do not break out here. We do not even have matches. In my first month in heaven, I often tried lighting a leaf on fire using a magnifying glass and a sunray, but the experiments proved fruitless. Only a thin wisp of smoke ever emerged.

The windows at the Gene are barred, so it is lucky that buildings do not catch on fire. Another unusual thing about this four-story building is its shape: a perfect cube. Most buildings I have seen are rectangular. Also, the Gene has no exterior architectural features. No awnings or cornices, for example.

I wonder who the inmates are. They must be townies who have committed offenses like serious acts of vandalism, disturbances of the peace, and violence causing injury. Such offenses are rare here, though. Perhaps Zig subdues certain townies in order to make the most wicked of dead American thirteen-year-olds a bit kinder and to avoid bloody clashes in Town.

I get off my bicycle and tie a red ribbon around the handlebars. The day is sunny and the sky the azure color that you, Father, call wild blue yonder. It is the kind of day when you, Mother, would remind me to wear a sun hat.

As I have mentioned, our skin never burns in heaven. Yet I do feel sunburned after my two-hour bicycle ride. Maybe I am suffering from heatstroke and should look for a water fountain. I stumble up the steps of the building into the Gene’s lobby, where a long wooden desk is manned by identical twin boys whose name stickers read, TIM LU and TOM LU. They are both wearing T-shirts with a yin-yang decal. I surmise they died in an accident like a house fire or a car crash. Their passing at the same time is lucky in an odd way; after all, losing a twin must be like losing a part of yourself.

The Lu twins are reading twin copies of The Swiss Family Robinson. “Greetings. My name is Oliver Dalrymple. I am here to visit an inmate,” I tell them. “A boy named Johnny Henzel.”

“Did he say Johnny Henzel?” Tim says to Tom.

“Yes, oh my, he did,” Tom says. “He did say Johnny Henzel.” I nod.

“The boy who came in last night,” Tim says to Tom as they both put down their books.

“The Grade F.”

“We never have Grade F’s. When was the last one, Tom?”

“Before our time, I’m sure. Decades ago.”

“What does ‘Grade F’ mean?” I ask.

“Oliver Dalrymple doesn’t know what ‘Grade F’ means.”

“Of course he doesn’t. He’s an outsider. ‘Grade F’ is an insider term. It means Johnny Henzel did something really, really bad.”

“Heinous, you might say.”

“Yes, heinous or even egregious.”

The twins do not look at me while they talk. They look at and speak to each other.

“I wonder what he could have done,” Tom says.

“Maybe he kidnapped somebody,” Tim replies. “We haven’t had a kidnapper in ages, have we, Tom?”

“No, I can’t recall the last one.”

“But kidnappers are usually classified as Grade D.”

“Maybe it was a series of kidnappings.”

“Oh my, a serial kidnapper,” Tim says. “How despicable.”

I cut in: “Johnny Henzel is not a serial kidnapper. He hit a boy over the head with a flashlight.”

“A flashlight?” Tim says to Tom. “That isn’t Grade F. That is Grade B, or at most C, depending on the injuries.”

“Also, it is alleged he shot somebody to death back in America.”

“Murder!!!!” Tom shouts.

“Keep it down, Tom! You’re not being very professional.”

“Murder is definitely Grade F.”

“Could I see Johnny Henzel?” I say.

“Oliver Dalrymple wants to visit a Grade F!”

“Even Grade D’s can’t have visitors. Even Grade D’s are in solitary confinement on the fourth floor. So imagine Grade F’s!”

“But I am the boy who Johnny allegedly shot.”

“Oliver Dalrymple’s the victim! Oh my! Oh goodness! A shooting victim!”

“Well, this is highly unusual, don’t you think, Tim?”

“ ‘Unprecedented’ is the word that leaps to mind.”

Tim and Tom Lu converse back and forth like this before deciding that one of them will check with authorities to see if Johnny can receive a visit from the boy he shot.

“Allegedly shot,” I say as Tim pushes back his chair and heads off.

While Tim is gone, I sit on a bench in a far corner and stare at the colored floor tiles, which form a kind of circular mandala like those that Buddhist monks create out of sand. Mandalas are supposed to favor peace, but my state of mind is hardly peaceful.

People who believe in a god often think, during trying periods in their lives, that their god is testing them. Is Zig conducting some kind of experiment here in Town despite his usual hands-off policy?

After ten minutes, Tim Lu is still not back. Meanwhile, the front doors to the Gene open, and in come Reginald Washington and Sandy Goldberg. They walk with purpose, their running shoes squeaking across the mandala. Reginald takes out his official do-good council president badge. They speak to Tom Lu, who says, “Boy, is our Grade F a popular boy today. There’s a lineup to see him.” Tom nods toward the bench where I sit. I stand as Reginald and Sandy turn toward me.

Reginald narrows his eyes. He looks peeved. “Heaven help us,” he says, loudly enough for me to hear. He crosses the floor to speak to me.

“Hello, Oliver,” he says, a forced smile on his face. “What a surprise to see you here.”

“I want to see Johnny,” I say.

His smile disappears. “Did Thelma send you? What was that girl thinking?”

“I want to be the one giving Johnny the news.”

Reginald slowly shakes his head. “No can do, brother. No can do.”

“Why not? I am his friend. One of his few friends here.”

Reginald pats my shoulder. “You’ve had a shock,” he says. “You need to rest in peace. In fact, I’ve asked Thelma to book you into the Deborah.”

“The asylum?!” I picture Willa Blake’s sickening plunge from the roof. “That is the last place I need to be!”

Reginald tells me I can wait in the lobby till he and Sandy finish their business upstairs with Johnny and the authorities. “Afterward, I’d like to talk to you about acting as a witness in a trial,” he says.

He returns to speak with the Lu twins. I feel exhausted. I press the palms of my hands into my eyes, just as I used to do in America when my eyes were red from reading mathematics books for hours on end. When I remove them, Sandy stands before me.

“Hello again, Oliver. You sure made good time. Reginald and me stopped along the way for blueberry pancakes. There was no butter, though. I totally miss butter, and I wish Zig would send us some, but at least we got syrup, right? Imagine if Zig decided, ‘No sweets for my children.’ ” She does Zig’s voice low and gruff. “ ‘Their teeth will rot out of their head!’ That would be a tragedy and a half, don’t you think? Having no sweets, I mean. Not rotten teeth. Are you a butter person?”

I have the unkind thought that her brain is the size of the peanut that did her in. “May I ask you a question?” I say.

“Sure, ask away. I’m an open book.”

“Did Johnny Henzel target me back at Helen Keller Junior High? When he shot his gun, did he plan to hit me?”

I cannot stop myself from asking, even though my question implies that I believe Johnny is guilty.

Sandy shrugs. “I hardly remember a thing, just that the other kid was in a psycho ward. I remember that ’cause I almost got sent to a psycho ward once. My mom thought I was anorexic—can you believe it?—but the reason I didn’t eat much was ’cause I was just always afraid of swallowing an allergen. I was allergic to loads of things—nuts, strawberries, buckwheat, tomatoes. But nuts were totally the worst. I couldn’t even—”

“You hardly remember a thing?!” I say, my voice rising and going squeaky. “One must be absolutely certain with accusations such as yours, Ms. Goldberg!”

She shrugs again, and I finally understand the phrase “shooting the messenger” because I want to slap her silly face.

Reginald comes back. “We have to go now, Sandy,” he says.

“Tell Johnny I’m here,” I plead with them. “Give him a message from me. Tell him…”

What to tell him? Do not lose hope. Do not lose your mind.

“Tell him, ‘If you’re ever in a jam, here I am.’ ”

It is a line from the song “Friendship.”

Tim Lu has returned and says loudly to his brother, “Until further notice, Mr. Dalrymple is denied the right to visit the Grade F.”

Because of his council president badge, however, Reginald is not denied visiting rights. Tom Lu escorts him and Sandy to the staircase leading to the upper floors.

When they are gone, I tell myself I must be as hardy as Joe and Frank: I must concoct a plan to rescue Johnny from this place. I sit back down. I am so dog-tired that my body, seemingly without my brain’s consent, lies across the bench. Thelma had given me a hooded sweatshirt to wear over my T-shirt, and I take it off to use as a pillow under my head. Tim and Tom throw me scolding looks from behind their novels, but I do not, as Johnny would say, give a flying f*ck (an expression whose etymology I cannot even guess).

Nobody else comes in or goes out. The jail seems to be the most underused building in heaven. It is so quiet that I wonder if I might hear Johnny’s reaction when he learns of the charges against him.

It is unfathomable to me that Johnny Henzel was Gunboy on the fourth day of eighth grade at Helen Keller Junior High. It simply cannot be. But even if it were true, I tell myself, it should not matter. What should matter is whether Johnny is Gunboy now, here in our heaven reserved for American thirteen-year-olds.

The front door of the jail opens. In walks Esther, wearing a pink beret. I sit up. She spots me right away and waves. I am heartened to see her. I wave back.