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I shook my head and looked out the window. I shouldn't have gotten into the car, I thought. This was very wrong.

"Don't you listen to the radio?" Harmony asked.

"Don't you get magazines or newspapers?" Roberta followed.

"Don't you go shopping, go to the mall, and at least see tapes?" Harmony continued, neither pausing to give me time to re sp and.

"You listen to rock, don't you? Who's your favorite group or singer?"

I looked from one to the other, feeling like I was under interrogation.

"No." I said to answer all their questions. "I have no favorites of anything, and I don't listen to the radio."

"Even in your car?" Harmony asked.

"My mother doesn't turn it on in the car." Roberta stared at me, a curious smile on her lips.

"You know what this is like?" she said, still staring at me, her face brightening with excitement, "its like finding someone who was buried alive for fifty years."

I felt myself blanch.

"Yeah," Harmony said. "That's right. You do have electricity. right?"

lectricity," I snapped at her. They all laughed.

"Where are we going?" I demanded.

"We're just killing some time until my sister leaves the house," Elliot said. He smiled at Harmony. "Unless you would like her to be there when we arrive," he added.

The heat in my neck rose so quickly. I thought my face was lit up like a full moon. What had he told her?

"Stop picking on him. Elliot," Harmony said and smiled at me. Roberta moved closer.

"Why doesn't your mother want you to go to a regular school?" she asked.

"My mother is a teacher, and she thinks I'll have a better education at home. She says there are too many distractions at school, and there is too much politics going on at the expense of the students."

"Expense of the students? What's that mean?"

"He does do better. He scores in the top percentiles every year, don't you. Noble?" Elliot asked.

"Yes," I said.

"There's more to school than school," Roberta said. "You could probably be on the soccer team or the baseball team, and you'd meet people and have fun."

I was silent. "Don't you care?"

I looked out the window, Don't I care? I thought. Yes, deep down I care. I care almost as much as Noble cared.

"Is it because your mother believes in voodoo or something?" she continued.

"Roberta!" Harmony cried. "Stop teasing him."

"I'm not teasing him. I was just interested. Elliot says you talk to birds and other animals and there are all sorts of weird things on your doors and around your home, and he says there's a graveyard. Is that true?"

"Elliot is a stranger to truth. He wouldn't see it if it was on the tip of his nose," I replied, which was something I had heard Mommy say about people. The girls laughed, but a little more nervously.

"Yeah. yeah. I'm not lying. He spends a lot of time in the woods. Don't deny it. Noble."