With this remark, Roy has somehow included Nathan in the group with his other friends. Burke glances at Nathan as if wondering who he is, but he goes on sitting next to Nathan without comment, propped on thick elbows. As Nathan listens, the boys talk about their weekend at the fishing camp at Catfish Lake where a lot of high school kids go to park or to get drunk. Burke drank too much beer this past Saturday, and pulled off all his clothes and ran up and down the lake shore whooping and hollering.

"You like to get drunk, Nathan?" Roy asks.

"Not much."

"That's because you're younger than us," Roy says. "I don't like it much either. It gives me a headache."

"You're full of shit, too," Burke says.

"Naw, I mean it. I drink a little bit, but it don't mean that much to me."

Nathan eats and stands. Roy has cleaned his plate too, then pushes it away and stretches. As if by accident he follows Nathan with his tray to the dishwasher's window.

There, Roy says he wants a smoke. He says this as if he has always included Nathan. Behind, Randy and Burke are scrambling to follow.

On the smoking patio, Randy, plump, round, and blond, addresses Nathan familiarly. Burke remains hidden, as if he hardly realizes Nathan is present at all. Some of the girls on the patio seem to notice Roy in particular, but he pays no special attention to anyone. Roy is famous for having a girlfriend at another high school, an achievement of real sophistication for a boy his age. He lights a cigarette, propping one foot on the edge of the round brick planter, which overflows with cigarette butts. His smoking a cigarette makes him seem harder, more aloof to Nathan, who stands beside him trying to look as if he belongs. Fresh wind scours the fields, stripping away layers of soil. Roy stands at the center of his friends; they are talking about deer hunting season. Burke's Dad bought him a new rifle, a Marlin 3030. Roy has a different type. They discuss the guns casually. They talk about going camping in the Kennicutt Woods. None of the talk includes Nathan, who owns no gun, stalks no deer. But with an occasional glance, Roy holds Nathan in place, without explanation.

When Nathan walks away from the courtyard at the sound of the lunch bell, he carries a cloud of Roy. He is distracted during his afternoon classes. Because of his scores on standardized tests, he is taking math and English with kids in the junior class during the afternoons. That day he has a hard time paying attention; he is thinking of Roy with the cigarette drawling from his lip. The math teacher asks if Nathan is sick at his stomach, he has such a pained expression on his face. The older kids, who are resentful of Nathan's presence, find the question funny.

At the end of the day, Nathan hurries to the bus, nevertheless too late, even after rushing, to claim the seat behind Roy. He is only temporarily disappointed. During the course of the ride, he works himself gradually forward, empty seat by empty seat, confident of eventual success since he will be riding to the last stop. Roy, efficient, steers from one dirt driveway to the other, and the orange bus discharges its passengers in clusters of neat frocks and clean blue jeans. Only two riders remain by the time Roy steers right at Hargett's Crossroads: a mumbling brunette girl named Linette, wearing blue butterfly barrettes, and an older black girl with bad skin, who sits directly behind Roy and talks to him every so often. Pretty soon the mumbling Linette steps out of the bus beside her mailbox, and within moments so does the girl with pocked skin. He and Roy ride alone on the bus to Poke's Road and all the way home.

Now that the moment has come, Nathan sits, stupefied. He gauges the few remaining empty seats between him and Roy. Roy glances at him in the general surveillance mirror. Finally he says, "Why don't you come up here?"

The question echoes. Nathan moves behind the driver's seat. A slight flush of color rises from Roy's collar. Nathan leans against the metal bar behind Roy's seat and hangs there, chin to seat back. The orange bus lumbers down the dirt road.

The feeling is restful. They can be quiet together. Nathan is glad, and wishes Poke's Road were longer.

Roy parks the bus beside the barn and sits for a moment. His face has taken on a strange meaning for Nathan, registering expressions Nathan would never have expected from someone older. Roy listens acutely, as if for some signal. It is as if he needs something but he cannot speak about it. Nathan lingers too, taking a long time to stack his books, straightening them carefully and arranging them largest to smallest. Roy says, reaching for his own books, "I have so much stuff to do on top of my homework, I'm about to go crazy."

"You have to work?"

"I got chores for my dad. There's always something to do around here." Roy grimaces, gathering his tattered notebooks and light jacket. "And I got to write a paper in English, and I don't want to."

"I'm good at that kind of stuff."

"Are you?"

"I like English."

"Then I'll come over later and you can help me. It's about railroads. The paper is."

Nathan can hardly believe the offer. Why does Roy want to spend time with him? Roy lets him descend first, but they linger on the short walk to the house. Roy says maybe he can help Nathan with other stuff, like math, since he's pretty good at math. Since Nathan is ahead of kids his own age, maybe he could use somebody older to help him. He mentions this casually, like a stray thought. They will study together later, after supper, the fact is established. Something about the agreement makes Nathan happy and afraid at the same time.

An image of his father gives the fear. The image comes to Nathan from dangerous places, from territories of memory that Nathan rarely visits. The memory is his father standing in a doorway, in the house in Rose Hill, and it reminds him of Roy because of the look in his father's eyes.

Later, standing at his bedroom window, Nathan watches Roy moving from barn to shed, shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled above his elbows, flesh bright as if the glow from a bonfire is radiating outward through his torso and limbs. He is cleaning the barn, stacking rusted gas cans and boxes in the back of the pickup truck, forking soiled hay into damp piles. He moves effortlessly from task to task as if he is never tired. The sight of him is like a current of cool water through the middle of Nathan.

It is a new feeling, not like friendship. Not like anything. Nathan has had friends before, especially before the family began to move so often. This feeling is stranger, forcing Nathan to remember things he does not want to remember.

After a while Nathan retreats from the window, lying across the bed scribbling idly at homework. He wants supper to be over. The arithmetic figures waver meaninglessly on the pages of his text. When he tries to concentrate, the word problems make periodic sense. He reads one long paragraph, considers it, realizes he has remembered nothing he has read, then finally stands, pacing to the window and drawing the curtain carefully back.

Roy stands below. He is waiting near the hedge as if he has called Nathan. He carries a wooden crate full of Mason jars with dusty, cobweb covered lids. Nathan parts the curtains slowly. Roy waves hello without fear or surprise. Nathan fights the impulse to turn away, to pretend he has come to the window for some other reason than to look at Roy. Roy's gentle smile disturbs Nathan deeply. It is as if he knows what Nathan is thinking and feeling. He sets the crate on the back porch and turns. He heads back to the barn for more jars. Nathan goes on watching as long as there is light.

Mom calls Nathan to supper, and he descends from upstairs as if into some shadowy pool. He sits underwater and eats the food his mother has prepared. Tonight, Dad misses supper, working late. Tonight, Nathan can taste what is in front of him.

After supper, Roy crosses the yard to Nathan's house for help with his homework. Nathan sits at the desk in his bedroom with light from a warm study lamp pouring over his grammar textbook. He has completed work on his sentence diagrams. Footsteps sound in the hall, and when Nathan turns, Roy is leaning against the door jamb, gripping school books as if he would like to crush them in his big boned hands. He says, "I told you I was coming."

"I know. I was waiting."

The statement pleases Roy. "You sure it's okay?"

"I finished my homework while you were doing your chores."

He has bathed and wears a white cotton shirt, buttoned to the collar. The cloud of his aftershave is vigorous. "Miss Burkette says you're supposed to be good at English, even if you are younger than me." He takes careful steps into the room, laying his books on the bed and rubbing his knuckles. "I hate to write stuff."

"I like it okay."

"I have to write about trains." Roy's brows knit to a sharp black line. He spreads open his notebook on the bed, and Nathan sits beside him on the sloping mattress. Miss Burkette has assigned his class to write a seven paragraph essay on a preselected topic, "Railroads in the United States." Roy has brought the volume "Q—R" of the World Book Encyclopedia with him, and he shows Nathan the sentences he has copied down from the article on "Railroad."

Nathan studies the writing and asks questions about the facts for the essay. Under these circumstances it becomes simple to talk, and the conversation feels as easy as their quiet. They discuss the essay seriously, agreeing that Roy must narrow what he wants to say about railroads, weighing one topic against another. Roy selects steam engines as a starting point and soon he is writing words on paper under Nathan's supervision. Roy seems vaguely surprised that the essay is actually getting written, and they work step by step through all the necessary decisions.