I slide down our hallway, back pressed against the wall.

Red numbers shine on the microwave clock: 11:07 PM.

“Nearly midnight,” I whisper, tiptoeing into the kitchen. I glance over my shoulder to see if anyone’s going to step from the shadows that cling to the kitchen walls.

One step at a time, past the peeling wallpaper, past the fridge, all the way to the cabinet beside the sink where we keep the candy. I reach to open the door.

“Ugh.”

Even at thirteen, I’m not tall enough to open the dumb cabinet. Feeling stupid, I reach between the fridge and the wall to grab the stepping stool. Lights flash on my face, and I panic until I see it’s the lights of a passing car shining through our windows. Suddenly, a cramp grips my leg. I bite my lip and drop the step stool to grab my knee. “Drat, growing pains...” My ankles, chest, knuckles, and wrists ache with tingling intensity, raising a surge of heat to my head.

“Grrrr!”

I stumble towards the sink, groaning. A stack of dishes from last night’s dinner lies neatly on the counter. Holding onto the counter, I yell and shove a plate onto the floor. It splits into three pieces. Not caring enough to panic, I accidentally knock another plate from under the stack, and they all crash to the tile floor, shattering. Angry, I raise the last plate in the air when another car zooms past the window, flickering light onto the face of my mom. She’s in her bathrobe, standing stock still in the doorway.

“Harry! What are you doing?” Her voice squeaks in panic. “You know you’re not supposed to break dishes!” I sense irony in her obvious words.

I set down the last plate carefully and say it. “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t know what came over…” I stop. Dad stands to my right. He stares at the dish. My leg pain seems to be lessening.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Harry just broke some dishes,” Mom answers, retying her bathrobe. I have to hand it to them; they are both taking this fairly well, considering it’s the third time this week. Dad stares at me.

“Son, come here. We need to talk.” He turns to Mom. “Sherry, you can go back to bed.”

“Alright, honey.” She rubs Dad’s shoulder, breathes out, and walks wearily down the hall.

Sometimes I wish she’d just yell and scream at me like Aunt Amanda. It makes me feel so guilty when she just quietly goes to bed after I do something rotten. If she’d just scream and slap me or something, I could stop thinking about it.

Dad leads the way to the living room, which really should be called the reading room with all the bookshelves lining the walls, stuffed to the brim with ancient classics. The moon laughs at me from the faded front of Grimm’s Fairytales.

Dad walks towards a lamp that sits by the couch and pulls a cord under the lampshade. It clicks on to a dull yellow.

We stand there for a minute, watching the light and waiting for it to reach a respectable brightness, before he takes a seat and begins.

“I think…” I don’t pay attention to what he’s saying. Probably something about how bad I am and how horrible I should be feeling right about now. Probably something about how if I were a good son, I wouldn’t be doing things like that. The words are easy for him. Words won’t make me stop, and we both know it. How could they when I don’t even know why I do what I do? When he’s finally done, I mumble whatever is expected of me, give Grimm’s Fairytales the evil eye, and shuffle back to bed.

“Get up Harry! Come on! It’s time for morning!” squeals my eight-year-old goblin, otherwise known as a sister. She throws a stuffed dog onto my head from my bedroom door.

“Alright, already,” I mumble, rolling out of bed and shutting the door. I throw on some blue jeans and a T-shirt, but when I grab my PJ’s to put them in the wash, I notice a couple of tears in the sleeves and pant legs. Must have happened last night with the plates. I wad them up and carry them down the hall to breakfast.

I shuffle into the kitchen to the smell of bacon and eggs.

“Hey, Mom, what’s for breakfast?” I ask, slipping into my chair at our four-person table.

“Eggs, bacon, and toast,” Mom answers, with a sigh, from the kitchen. I assume the sigh means she’s fed up with me. Who wouldn’t be? That little mess I made last night is the least of my accidents lately, including kinda smashing up the inside of our car with a rusty pipe. I was supposed to be helping fix the car to make up for breaking so many things lately, but when Dad went inside to get a Coke, I kinda got randomly angry and smashed it instead. Of course, there was also the other night when I went for a little walk and ended up ripping up our flowerbeds and throwing a rock at the front window. I didn’t mean to break the window, it’s just that my growing pains are so annoying lately, and I’m annoying lately, and everything in my life is annoying lately. So I guess I can see why she might be upset.

My dad peeks at me from over his paperback, Encyclopedia of Ancient Myths.

When I look his way, he pretends to be intently reading again.

Mom hates it when he reads at the table, so he always says it’s for work and gets away with it. I could never bring my books to the table.

“Butter my toast, Harry!” Sarah demands. I reach across the table to pick up her toast and dip my sleeve in the butter.

“Uh, Mom, my PJ’s have rips in them,” I explain.

“Oh really?” She walks around the table, spooning eggs onto all of our plates. I glance at my dad again and catch him peering at me. He clears his throat and causally goes back to the book.

“If they’re worn out, you should drop them off at the Salvation Army,” Mom says. “They could use them there.”

“Okay...” I scarf down my eggs and toast, and grab some bacon off the platter as soon as Mom sets it down.

“Go on your way to school, so you won’t forget,” she continues. “And come back before nine. You don’t need to hang out at Taylor’s house all day. There are other things in this world to do besides play with that kid.”

“Like watch TV,” Dad suggests.

Mom glares at him.

“Taylor and I watch TV,” I explain, hoping that will make Mom happy. I eat another piece of toast and grab some more bacon.

“Pass the bacon, please,” Mom says tensely. “Before you eat it all.”

“I didn’t eat it all.” I pass her the plate. I see Dad watching me mysteriously again, over the top of his book.

“Dad, why do you keep staring at me?” I ask.

“I’m not staring at you,” he says calmly.

“Harry, you’re gonna be late for school.” Mom sighs. “Hurry up and go. And try not to do anything”—she and Dad exchange a glance—“crazy, today.”

“Okay, I won’t. I don’t mess up everything, you know.”

“Harry, where’s my toast?” Sarah pouts.

I look down at the buttered toast I’m eating. “Oh. Uh... here.” I hand her the crust, grab my wadded up PJ’s and my backpack, and hurry out the front door.

After jogging down the sidewalk, I reach the crosswalk where Taylor and I always meet. I can see from the back that he’s dressed as goofily as ever in layered shirts that don’t match, green high-tops, fingerless gloves, and a ski cap in the middle of summer—not to mention his backpack that’s big enough to hold all the books in the school library.

“Hi, Taylor,” I say, as the red hand across the street turns to a white man, and we trot across the road. It’s a good thing our school is close enough to the neighborhood that both Taylor’s mom and mine feel comfortable with us walking, because if it weren’t for that, I don’t think we ever would’ve become friends.

“Hey, Harry,” he says. “What’s up?”

“Uh... I tried to sneak candy from the kitchen last night. Mom’s pretty upset about it.”

“Really?” He grins at me with crooked teeth and hoists his backpack higher on his back. “Your mom seems pretty nice and quiet and stuff.”

“She’s quietly upset. I also did break some dishes. Just sorta threw them on the floor.”

“Oh really?” Taylor tries to sound like I’m telling him something normal. “That’s nice.”

A moment of squeaking tennis shoes on the sidewalk, then he asks it. “So... why’d you do that?”

I shrug.

“If you really want something sweet, you could come over to my house after school. We could bake cookies.”

“Bake cookies?” I laugh. That doesn’t sound like a cool thing to do. “That’s for moms.”

“What? It’s fun.”

I shrug. “Okay.”

“Uh-oh—” Taylor pants, looking over his shoulder. His eyes light with panic. “It’s Spade! Act natural.”

“Why wouldn’t I act natural?” I ask.

“Wha—I said do act natural!” He hisses in mortal fear.

“But why would you tell me to act natural unless there was some reason I shouldn’t be?”

A short, hefty boy jogs up beside us, panting. “What are you two gabbin’ about?” He snorts, rocking a Saint Patrick’s Day T-shirt and three rings on one hand. “I ran all the way from 45th Street! That’s three blocks, when you boys both live just around the corner and how far have ye gone? Barely a block! Ha!” His accent is so thickly Irish that I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.

Taylor cowers behind me, so I try to fill up the silence and be as friendly as I know how. “There was a nice moon out last night,” I comment.

“How would ye know that?” he snaps. “If you were in bed at a respectable hour, you wouldn’t ‘ave been up to see it! What’o you think o’ that?”

“I think you’re right.” I shrug.

“Of course I’m right! I’m always right!” He huffs. “Who’s that sulkin’ behind ya?”

“It’s Taylor,” I say, unable to think of a reason not to answer him. Taylor shakes his head and shrinks behind me, but the little Irishman won’t be deterred. He stomps in front of my friend and puts his fists on his hips.

“What are ya hidin’ from? Come on out and shake hands like a man!”

“But I’m not a man, I’m a boy...” Taylor whimpers.

“Well so am I! We’re all boys, lanky squirt! What’s that joke you’ve got on your head? It’s not Halloween or anything, ya know!”

Taylor wraps both arms around his precious hat, pitifully. “It’s my hat...” he stutters.

“Ooh it is, is it? Well why in the name o’ potatoes don’t ye take it off? It’s a hundred and two out here!”