Sunday was an especially boring day. My folks, for some reason, decided that this would be a great day to go to church. I wondered if they’d overheard my conversation with Ron about going to church. But my door was closed so I knew that couldn’t have happened. I begged off because of my arm and because I didn’t want people coming up to me with questions about what happened to me.

Mom told me that we’d have breakfast when they got back, and that would give me an hour and a half to catch some sleep then get ready. I wasn’t tired, so I got up, showered, and brushed my teeth then went downstairs to find something breakfasty to munch on until my folks got home. I poured a bowl of Joe’s O’s, sliced half of a banana and scattered the slices over my cereal, added some milk, and sat at the kitchen table and ate my pre-breakfast breakfast and read the Sunday paper. Not all of the paper, just the comics, sports, and local news sections.

It was almost nine o’clock and I was bored. I decided to go to my room and get going on my homework. I needed to get caught up in all of my classes, especially the Physics experiments. They’d probably take the most time. David Choi had left all of the materials I needed for the rest of the chapter 17 and all of the chapter 18 experiments. That would get me caught up in that class. I wanted to complete all of them so when he came for our tutoring session on Friday he could review what I’d done.

I still hadn’t heard from Mr. Field with my assignments for Web Design 2. Maybe he sent me something on Blackboard. I logged in and sure enough, there was a long list of assignments from the Web Design 1 class he taught last semester. He wrote that he’d sent this to me so I’d know what the others in my class had already covered that I hadn’t. He wrote that he didn’t expect me to actually do the reading or the assignments since I told him that I developed my own website. However, to be successful in this semester’s class it would be necessary for me to understand this material. He also included the assignments for Web Design 2 from the beginning of the semester through the end of this week. I skimmed through them and didn’t see anything that I didn’t already know how to do. I looked through the messages to find the title of the textbook being used in this class, but it wasn’t there. I really wanted to get it because the assignments were based on exercises in the textbook. I decided to phone Nate later and ask him if he’d go see Mr. Field on Monday and get a copy of the textbook for me.

My basic classes this semester were Algebra 2, English 2, AP European History, and Physics. They were also my most intense classes, but not necessarily the toughest. Only AP European History was on my ‘tough class’ list. That led me to think about how I should approach my classes. They could be organized in categories including by how difficult the class was for me, by amount of reading, by amount of memorization, by the complexity of homework, by time needed to complete homework assignments, by number of tests, and by time studying for tests. I assigned numbers from one to five to each category for each class. I keyed the results into a spreadsheet with my classes down the rows and the categories across the columns. Unfortunately, one of the rows was empty, the one for Web Design 2. I didn’t have enough information about the class to fill in the values for each category. So I decided to go with the average and made every category a three. The results looked pretty much how I figured they would.

Trouble is, I could be wrong about the difficulty level of some of the classes, especially Web Design 2. But the way it came out was about as good as anything else I could think of. I decided to review my rankings with Evan on Thursday and David on Friday when they came to tutor me. I’d be able to analyze the workload for Web Design 2 as soon as I got the textbook. For now this would be the class order I would use for doing homework and studying for tests.

Then I realized something that I hadn’t considered. I needed to make sure my homework was done before my tutoring sessions. That meant my homework for Evan needed to be finished before he came on Thursday, and I had a little more time to finish my homework for David because he came on Friday. I added my tutor days and resorted the chart.

That gave me a new way to look at what order I should do my homework. I thought about this for a bit, and decided I’d try it out for a couple weeks and see how it worked.

I pulled out my European History textbook and opened it to where I’d bookmarked the last page I’d read. I’d been reading for about ten minutes when my cell ringtone song started playing. I looked at the caller ID and answered the call. It was Nate.

“Hi, Nate.”

“Hi, Brian. I hope I’m not bothering you. It’s pretty early.”

“Hey, no problem, I was going to call you later anyway. I’m just sitting here reading my European History book. I’ve got a couple weeks of homework to catch up on. You interrupted what some people would call terminal boredom.” I laughed.

“So what were you going to call me about?”

“I was wondering if you could go see Mr. Field on Monday and ask him for a copy of the textbook for his Web Design 2 class. Then if you’re coming over Monday after school you could bring it to me.”

“I must have been reading your mind. I was calling you to see if I could come by and see you Monday afternoon. And if so, what homework assignments you’d want me to pick up and bring over.”

“I gave you my story that you turned in to Mrs. Ocampo, my Creative Writing teacher on Thursday. It should be ready to pick up on Monday afternoon. I’m real curious about the feedback from her and from the people in my class that got it to review.”

“I can stop by and pick it up if she has it ready. Do you have anything else to drop off?”

“Yeah, I reviewed three stories and I wrote my response for each of them. One of the stories is amazing and I'd like to have you read it and tell me what you think. But I don’t think it would be right for me to let you read it until I ask the guy who wrote it if I can let someone who’s not in the class read his story.”

“Thing is, if you give it to me to turn in for you, there’s nothing stopping me from reading it, is there?”

“Uh, yeah, there is. It’s called a sealed envelope.”

“Oh. I guess that would stop me.”

“Tell you what, I’ll call the guy who wrote it and ask if I can give it to you to read. If he says yes, then it’s all okay. Otherwise, not.”

“Okay. Are you going to call him today?”

“Yeah. I have a reason to call him. He’s one of the kids who visited my folks when I went missing. I need to talk to each of them to let them know I’m back and to thank them for coming by.”

“So, I guess I should come over today to pick up the reviews you wrote. You going to be doing anything?”

“Yeah, homework. I’ll need a break, so a visit from my best friend will be excellent.”

“You mean that, don’t you, Brian.”

“If you’re referring to the best friend part, absolutely yes. I think of you as my best friend. I assume that’s okay with you.”

“More than okay. I think of you as my best friend too. And we’ve known each other, I mean really known each other personally and not just passing in the hall at school, for what, less than a week, right?”

“That’s right. I think it’s amazing.”

“Damn. For me it seems like it’s been a lot longer than that.”

“For me too.”

“Well, enough of this remembrance of times past. When do you want me to come over?”

“Anytime. Now, or later, whatever works for you.”

“Your folks home?”

“They went to church.” I checked my watch. “It’s nine forty five, so they should be home real soon now, maybe fifteen minutes. If you haven’t had breakfast, my mom’s going to fix a big Sunday breakfast and you’re welcome.”

“Actually, I just got up and I’m starving. How about I get there in twenty minutes. That’ll give me enough time to shower and walk to your house. You’re sure your folks will be okay with me barging in on your family breakfast?”

“My folks like you a lot. No es problema, señor. Which reminds me, bring your Spanish book and I’ll help you with your translation.”

“Deal. I’ll see you shortly, Brian.”

“Ditto, Nate.”

I hung up and looked up Rob Langale in my contacts and clicked the Call button. Shit, maybe it was too early to call him. As soon as I completed that thought he picked up.

“Rob here. Who’s this?”

I laughed. “This is Brian.”

“Brian Anderson? No shitting me? You’re back, alive and all that?”

“Yeah, and I’m finally getting around to calling my friends to say hi and you’re the first. Well, you’re actually the second friend I’ve talked to but the first one I’ve actually called.”

“Now I know it’s you. You are Mr. Brian ‘I talk in convoluted sentences’ Anderson. How are you doing, man?”

“I’m doing okay. Long story short, I was attacked and beat up and ended up in a hospital in Weatherford, Texas.”

“So the rumors about Quin and Tom are true?”

“I haven’t heard those rumors, but the answer is probably yes. You know, we’ve gotta get together. I can’t get out, but I can have people here. When will you have some time to come by?”

“How about today? I have nothing to do except some stupid composition for English, so as soon as that’s done I’m free. Say, in about an hour and a half? Let’s see, it’s almost ten, so does eleven thirty work for you?”

“That’s perfect. I might even talk Mom into making lunch for us. Say, you know Nate Mead?”

“He’s in my Algebra and Spanish classes. I don’t know him other than to say hi when we see each other in class or passing in the halls. He’s a jock, so he’s not really in my circle of friends.”

“Nate and I are friends, and he’s coming over too. You’ll like him. He’s a great guy, and smart, too. Is that okay?”

“Sure, why not? So, see you about eleven thirty then. And it’s really good to hear from you, Brian. Later, man.”

“Later, Rob.”

Okay, that went well. It also made me embarrassed that I hadn’t contacted anyone else. I really needed to get going on my people-to-call list.

I heard the garage door opening, and that meant Mom and Dad were home from church. I got up and went downstairs, grabbed a glass of orange juice, and sat at the kitchen table.

“See, Phyllis? I told you Brian would be sitting at the kitchen table waiting for you to fix his breakfast. Someday you have to teach him how to cook otherwise he’ll starve to death if you’re not here to feed him.”

“I’ll have you know that I was up in my bedroom slaving over my European History textbook. And by the way, Nate’s coming over and I invited him to have breakfast with us. Is that okay?”

Mom smiled. “Nate is always welcome here.”

“I agree,” Dad added.

“Great. He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. We’re going to work on our homework, then Rob’s coming over at eleven thirty and he’ll help Nate with his Spanish homework. They’re in the same class.”

“That’s Rob Langale?” Mom asked.

“Yeah. I’m starting to get in touch with my friends.”

“I’m glad. You’re still planning on finding out how to contact all of your friends who came to see us when you were missing?”

“Yes, I’m going to call Mr. Eamonds tomorrow morning and see if there’s something he can do to get me the snail mail or email addresses of the ones I don’t have.”

“It’s nice that Rob is coming over. You’ve known him for years.”

“Yeah, I have. It’ll be good seeing him again. Say, since Rob will be here around lunch time and Nate will be here too, maybe we can have some pizza?”

Dad shook his head and grinned. “You haven’t even had breakfast and you’re already talking about lunch? You must have a hollow leg!”

“Hey, just like my homework I have to catch up on my eating.” I grinned, “I must have lost fifty pounds in that hospital. I gotta get it all back.”

“You probably gained fifty pounds eating all of that wonderful hospital food.”

That kind of bantering back and forth continued while Mom fixed breakfast. Bacon and eggs and hash brown potatoes and toast. And coffee. I love coffee with a bacon and eggs breakfast.

We heard the doorbell. I assumed Nate had arrived, and that’s who it was.

We all sat down and the conversation during breakfast started with Mom asking about my homework.

“I have to get caught up with European History. That’s mostly reading, and Nate can help me with the questions at the end of each chapter. I’m sure I told you we’re in the same class. Then I have to catch up with my Physics experiments. Nate and I have that class too, so he can help me do things that take two hands. We should be done with both of those by the time Rob gets here. He’s in my Creative Writing class, so we’ll go over the three stories I’m reviewing. That should be fast because I’m sure I caught up with where I should be in that class. Rob can make sure there isn’t anything more I need to write and turn in, but I don’t think there is. Then we’re just going to hang, maybe watch one of the basketball playoff games, have lunch, then maybe play a video game that only takes one hand.”

“If there is such a thing,” Nate added, laughing. “Play with one hand, ‘eh? Well, I need to play against someone where I’m guaranteed a win.”

“Huh. I can beat you if I had one arm in a sling!”

“You have one arm in a sling, and if you’re expecting a handicap for that you must have been dreaming.”

“Handicap? I don’t need no stinkin’ handicap!”

“Yeah, well we’ll see, won’t we.”

We helped Mom and Dad clean up, taking the dishes off the table and stacking them in the sink where they could be rinsed and put into the dishwasher.

“Why don’t you guys go do your homework and we’ll finish up in here,” Dad offered.

“Okay, thanks.” I looked at Nate. “Let’s head upstairs and spend some quality time on European History. We shouldn’t be very long. I think I can get caught up this morning.”

Nate and I sat on the floor, leaning against the side of my bed. Maybe it wasn’t the most comfortable way to sit, but it was better than sitting on my bed leaning against the headboard.

I opened my copy of A History of Modern Europe to the page where I’d put a bookmark.

“This freakin’ book is like that big dictionary in the library. Fourteen hundred pages. How am I going to remember all of this stuff for the AP exam?”

Nate poked me in the arm. “I have us covered, man. Here.” He pulled a thick paperback book out of his backpack and handed it to me. I read the title out loud.

“Cracking the AP European History Exam, 2010 Edition. What’s this?”

“This, Brian, is your copy of the most fantastic study guide about European History that’s ever been written.”

“My copy? You bought this for me?”

“That I did. We will concentrate on what’s covered in this study guide, and relate it to the chapter and pages in our textbook instead of doing it the other way around.”

“Man, this must have been expensive.”

“Nah. I got both copies from Amazon. Under twelve bucks each and shipping was free. So, this is a gift from me to you. It’s the sort of thing that best friends do for each other.”

I looked at Nate and grinned, then leaned over and pushed my right arm around his back and gave him a hug. “Thanks, Nate. It’s wonderful having you as my best friend.”

“Aw, shucks!” he replied, and we both busted up laughing.

I showed Nate the chapter I’d finished, and he agreed that brought me up to date with the class.

“Now, what we need to do is go to that section in the AP Exam study guide and we’ll review their example questions. I think it’s best if we get familiar with the study guide by sticking to where we are in the textbook. When we study for the AP exam we can go to the beginning of the study guide and cover the sample questions and go back to the textbook and read the material. We can go back and forth that way. There are fewer chapters in the study guide, and they are based on what’s on the exam. The material follows the same timeline as the textbook, so we can go to the textbook and find what’s related.”

“So, are you saying that I’m caught up and I don’t have any European History to read this week?”

“Yes and no. Yes, because you’re caught up now. And no, because Mrs. Wiese will be assigning more tomorrow so you’ll have more reading to do.”

“Can’t we just read ahead in the textbook?”

“We might be wasting our time if we did that. She’s starting to skip over stuff because the end of the semester is on the horizon and we’ll never be able to cover everything that’s left. We’ve only gotten about sixty percent of the way through the textbook, but we’re over three quarters of the way through the school year. No way we can cover the other forty percent of the book in twenty five percent of the available class time. So I think she’s jumping to the parts that are most likely to be on the AP Exam. So, we are finished with European History. What say we get into your Physics experiments?”

“Good idea. I’ve finished the experiments for chapter 17, now I have to do the ones for chapter 18. Is that still where you’re at in Physics?”

“Yeah. I mean, like nothing’s changed since Friday.”

“Shit! I’m totally losing track of time and what’s what and when. Well, you can help me with the chapter 18 experiments.”

So that’s what we did. Chapter 18 had more experiments on magnetism, and one was a lot of fun. I had to set up the equipment to measure the amount of force needed pull two electromagnets apart. Nate and I bet on how much force was needed. He was positive he’d win because he’d run the experiment at school. He forgot about the variability caused by the low-level equipment we were using. That variability just about guaranteed that different pairs of electromagnets would provide different results. We bet a quarter. I won.

Nate shook his head. “How the heck did that happen? Or maybe it should be why the heck didn’t it happen the way it was supposed to?”

“Think about it for a bit. Think about the equipment I set up to run the experiment. Actually you did most of the set up. Is it exactly the same as the equipment you used when you did the experiment in class?”

Nate thought for a few seconds. “Damn. It’s not exactly the same, is it?”

“Nope. This is cheap stuff. The electromagnets don’t have exactly the same winding, some windings are loose and others are tight. If you look at the two electromagnets in my experiment they have slightly different diameters and different lengths. All of that variability means the results aren’t going to be the same from experiment to experiment when different equipment is used.”

“That’s amazing. Or maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s just interesting. We did the experiments in class in teams, and we never compared our results with other teams. Mr. Nayak never talked about any difference in results between teams. Everyone working on one team would have had the same results, so we never realized that there could be differences. Good catch, Brian.”

“I wouldn’t have ever thought about it if you hadn’t decided to bet me about what the results would be. A sucker bet, by the way.” I grinned and poked him in his arm.

“Remind me to never bet against you, Brian.”

“I’ll do just that.”

We completed the rest of the chapter 18 experiments and I had several pages of notes that I’d use to write my reports.

We looked over chapter 19. This was the first of several chapters on electromagnetic radiation, including radio waves, microwave, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. We looked at the experiments we were going to run, and decided they were going to be a lot more interesting than the ones on electromagnets.

I heard the doorbell.

“That must be Rob. Let’s go downstairs.”

Rob was chatting with Mom when we walked into the living room.

“Hey, Rob. Good to see you.”

“Yeah, it seems like such a long time. How long has it been since you were attacked?”

“Today’s the twenty-eighth and it happened on the eleventh, so that’s seventeen days. About two and a half weeks.”

“You’re looking good, Brian.”

“Thanks. You and Nate know each other, right?” Rob nodded. ”Nate, Rob and I have known each other like forever. We went all the way through elementary and middle schools together and now it’s the same in high school.”

Rob turned to Nate, “Hey, Nate, ¿Cómo usted está haciendo?”

“Soy el hacer grande. ¿Cómo sobre usted?”

I grinned. “How about we go up to my room and you two can work on your Spanish homework.”

“I’ll let you know when the pizza’s here, Brian,” Mom called after us as we headed upstairs.

“Thanks, Mom.”

When we got to the bedroom Nate and Rob sat on my bed and I sat in my computer chair.

Rob looked at my arm. “Did you break your arm, Brian? I assume it’s broken.”

“Yeah, it’s broken. It happened when I was attacked by Quin Santoni and Tom Calloway.” Of course, Rob wanted to hear the story about what happened to me. I gave him my short summary version leaving out most of the details so we wouldn’t spend all afternoon talking about it. Of course Rob had lots of questions, some of which I answered and others I finessed.

“Okay, what do you guys want to do?”

Rob had a suggestion. “You want to work on the Spanish translations, Nate?”

“Yeah, but what I want to do right now is just hang for a while until the pizza gets here. Brian and I’ve been working on European History and Physics for a couple hours and I’m burned out.”

“That works for me,” Rob replied. “That okay with you, Brian?”

“Yeah. But first I have a question for you. You wrote a story for our Creative Writing class that I got to review. I’ll tell you, it was real tough coming up with my reading response.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“No, just the opposite. It’s the best story I’ve read in our class... actually, one of the best I’ve ever read, and that’s what made it so hard to review. Everything I wrote sounded like a puff piece from the back cover of a book. Finally, I was able to put something together that was my analysis of the story and saying what I thought about it. I’d like you to read it, Rob.”

I pulled out my reading response and handed it to him. He sat and read for a few minutes, then went back to the beginning and read through it again. He looked up and handed me my paper. I could see that he had teared up. He rubbed his arm across his eyes wiping his tears on his shirt sleeve.

“How did you know?”

“Huh?” I responded. “Know what?”

“That I’m gay.”

“Rob, I never said that in my review. I think the only thing I said was that it’s so well written that any reader could assume that it’s autobiographical regardless of whether it is or not.”

I still had my review, and he asked for it and I gave it to him. He spent a couple minutes rereading it, then handed it back.

“Um... that was pretty dumb of me, wasn’t it?”

“You’re talking in riddles, Rob. What was dumb of you?”

“Thinking you had guessed that I’m gay because of what you wrote. Now that I read it again, for the third time, I can see you weren’t saying that, it was just a compliment you made about how I wrote the story.”

“So you just told us you’re gay. That doesn’t mean that your story is autobiographical.”

“Well, I guess it could be taken either way.” Rob took a deep breath. Um... now that you know, does it make any difference? Are we still friends?”

“Of course we are, dufus! Why would that make any difference? As long as you’re not planning to jump my bod or something like that.”

Rob grinned. “Jump your bod and risk injuring your broken arm or your smashed-in skull? I don’t think so.”

“Good. Not that you jumping my bod would be repulsive or anything like that, it’s just that I’m straight.” I heard Nate make a choking noise, but I avoided looking at him. “Anyway, I have a question. I’d like Nate the read your story, with your permission of course. Would that be okay?”

Rob stared at Nate for a second. “It’s a gay story. Not the sort of thing a jock would want to read.”

“Why not? I have an open mind and I like all kinds of stories, including some where there’s a gay character. Or even gay sex.”

I realized that Nate wasn’t going to out himself to Rob, and that was fine with me.

“You might be disappointed, there’s no gay sex, no sex at all, in my story. Anyway Brian, it’s okay to let Nate read it. Um... I’d like it if you’d keep what I said about being gay private. I don’t want to be outed at school.”

“No problem with that. If you want to tell people you’re gay, that’s your decision. I’d never tell anyone,” Nate replied.

“Let me get the story.” I unzipped the pocket on my backpack and handed the story to Nate. He read it, and looked at me then at Rob.

“I can’t believe it. I’ve never read anything like this. It’s the most frightening story I’ve ever read.”