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“Oh, honey, it’s very different in Italy. You don’t speak the language. The customs. The way people are. You’d be lost. You would never make friends there. You need to finish homeschooling here in America—andthenthe world is your oyster.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he lied.

“It makes perfect sense. You’ll love Dr. Liebhaber, and you’ll be a cultivated young man when she’s done with you. So ... it’s at least four more hours to San Francisco, even as fast as Omar drives. Tell me about Briarbush, I want to hear all about it.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Benny said.

“Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I believe you? You’ve always been a truthful boy.”

“Well,” he said, “in some Asian jungle, Mrs. Baneberry-Smith was bitten by a dying extraterrestrial that injected her with all the knowledge of its race. So then, back at Briarbush, she starts doing transspecies experiments, and Prescott Galsbury—”

“Wait, wait. Who is Mrs. Baneberry-Smith?”

“Shewasthe wife of Lionel Baneberry-Smith but—”

“And who is this Lionel?”

“The headmaster. But he supposedly fell down—”

“Headmaster? What’s a headmaster?”

After a hesitation, Benny said, “That’s what they call the person who runs a school like Briarbush.”

“Why wouldn’t they call him the principal?”

“I thought you would have met him.”

“Jubal made all the arrangements. I wouldn’t have known about boarding schools, how to find the right one, how to handle that. Now what about Mrs. Baneberry-Smith’s experiments?”

Benny’s hands rested on his thighs, palms up, fingers curled like the legs of some pale, dead insect. “See, that was just a movie I saw. I was gonna try to make it sound like something that really happened at Briarbush.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Well, I guess to entertain you. Briarbush was a boring place. I just wanted to make it entertaining for you.”

After a silence, Naomi said, “The limo has a fabulous audio system, and it’s got Sirius radio. Why don’t we listen to music?”

“That sounds nice.”

“What kind of music do you like?”

“Whatever you like.”

“I’ll pick something fun.”

“Okay.”

“In the ice there, we’ve got bottles of water and coconut water and unsweetened ice tea. Get whatever you’d like.”

“I will.”

“We’ve also got snacks. Healthy chips, some French crackers, sunflower seeds, meatless jerky made out of something or other.”

“Sounds good,” he said.

San Francisco seemed as far away as Cairo.

LLEWELLYN URNFIELD