I’m not sure when it started: the day my new neighbors moved in, or the night of Halloween a few months later when he took his costume a little too far.  

          The boy, new to the neighborhood, was a seemingly ordinary boy: probably got straight A’s in school, not one to pick a fight, never received detention in his life; but, I don’t know. There was always something … off about him. 

            Maybe it was his obsession with the world’s criminal records or the fact that he never talked. 

              He was always silent. 

I know he’s not mute; I’ve heard him talk to himself on the way to school. He’s probably the shy type. At least, that’s what I believed.