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Dustin was beyond excited for the show.

Nancy had been true to her word and set it up so that Dustin was a student-exhibitor through the school. Apparently, Nancy had been the one who called Mildra in the first place.

The four of them – Dustin, Nancy, Joshua and Jillian – had decided to spend three weeks on their entire academic course load for the year at the end of March, and then spent all of April and May designing the installation.

Apart from Laney and Shane, Dustin had never spent any significant amount of time with anyone before. He’d never been part of a group, a team, outside of his family. It made him feel… nice.

The other students at Riverglen seemed to like him, although they kept their distance. Dustin wasn’t the only student who didn’t like to talk, didn’t like groups, and kept to himself. It was commonplace enough not to be considered an oddity, and so for the first time in his life he’d made friends.

An older girl, Danielle, who wore thick black eye liner and black tutus, liked to sit with him at lunch even though she kept her headphones on the whole time. An Asian boy named Yuto who was a year younger than him liked to practice his violin in the installation room while Dustin sketched, listening as he and Danielle discussed the logistics of building his piece while keeping it portable. And Joshua and Jillian had even come over to the house in May.

It was a rare Saturday that Shane wasn’t working, and Cary wasn’t home which Dustin totally hadn’t expected. He’d been a bit worried that Shane and Laney would be mad at him for having friends over when they so rarely got time alone, but they’d seemed genuinely pleased for Dustin. Shane barbecued hamburgers for them, and Laney made lemonade. They’d all shared a joint, and Dustin had wanted to try it, too, feeling left out, but he didn’t ask. They were all older, and he knew Shane would say no.

Jillian blushed a lot when Shane talked and he could tell Laney didn’t like it, but she was nice anyway just because Jillian was Dustin’s friend.

As his birthday, the exhibition, and the end of the school year all approached, Dustin was filled with joy. Cary usually disappeared in the summers, busy with work and girls and avoiding the heat. He could feel Laney’s excitement, and Shane’s, and knew everyone was thinking the same thing; how nice it would be to get time alone without Cary.

He’d asked to go bowling again for his birthday and was totally shocked when three laneways worth of people from school showed up.

Laney and Shane had disappeared for an hour, returning with big grins, looking flushed and disheveled, but Dustin didn’t care. His friends had taken turns bowling for them while they were gone, giving them bad scores on purpose.

As the show approached, he spent more and more time with Nancy who had been helping him with the jigsaw puzzle of crating the individual pieces for transport.

“You’re twelve now,” Nancy had said, beaming at him. “Even though you’re all grown up, did you know that you’re still the youngest artist ever to exhibit in a Henry Bard collection?”

“It’s all because of you,” he mumbled, staring at his shoes.

“No, sweetie,” she said, tapping his chest with her finger. “It’s all because of you. ”