I cry all the time now. I order a stir-fry in the cafeteria and tears dribble down my face (“I’m very sensitive to onions,” I lie to the waitress). At Curios, tears fall on my typewriter keys as I type up a notice about our sea monkeys, which are repassing one by one. When I read the novel Tarzan of the Apes, I weep when Lord and Lady Greystoke are killed. At this point, I would blubber if, during a trying investigation, Nancy Drew broke a fingernail.

My nickname may soon be Boo Hoo (ha-ha).

I used to pride myself on my independence. In America, I could spend days speaking to no one but you, Mother and Father. I had my morning constitutionals. I had my documentaries on PBS television. I had my books. I had my visits to the library, a place where spending time in one’s head is highly valued.

I am still independent, but also lonely—a new feeling for me. I spend plenty of time by myself in my office, where I play the Wobblin’ Goblin music box, which is working again. I identify with that poor creature up in the sky, almost falling but somehow managing to stay afloat.

Thelma, Esther, and Peter Peter believe that my mind was muddled after I fainted onstage. That is why, they reason, I corroborated Johnny’s version of events. “You didn’t know what you were saying, did you, Boo?” Esther asks. “I was confused,” I tell her. “Sad and confused.” She seems to believe me—or perhaps only pretends and actually wonders whether I am seeking some sort of revenge.

Thelma and Peter Peter worry about me. Peter Peter invites me on father-son outings. Last week, he taught me to catch a football. Thelma came along because her throwing arm is even better than his. The two of them have been seeing a lot of each other. They often exchange gifts. Yesterday, Thelma made him a loaf of zucchini bread, and Peter Peter gave her a half-ounce sample from our bottle of Tigress perfume.

As for Johnny, I have not seen him. Until the do-good council decides on his sentence, I am not allowed to visit. Nonetheless, I go to the jail every day in case a decision is reached.

Tim Lu: “The Grade F is still awaiting his sentence.”

Tom Lu: “So no visitors today.”

Tim Lu: “When will the pathetic victim get on with his afterlife?”

The gommers still demonstrate outside the Gene, clamoring for the redeath penalty. The method they favor is especially barbaric: a stoning.

I was subject to a kind of stoning, Mother and Father. On the first day of eighth grade, three days before my passing, I arrived home with a bloody nose because Kevin Stein, Nelson Bliss, and Henry Axworthy had whipped rocks at me in the field behind our school. “I was away all summer,” Kevin cried, “and boy oh boy did I miss torturing you, Boo,” a remark that drew much guffawing from his friends.

Father, you wet a washcloth with warm water and gently wiped away my blood. You said, “Age thirteen was the most dangerous year of my life, son.”

My dear gentle father, you, too, had attracted the wrath of bullies.

“But you’ll grow up, Oliver,” you said. “You’ll leave eighth grade far behind.”

“Father,” I say aloud now, alone in my room, “I’m stuck at age thirteen. I’m stuck here for a frigging lifetime.”