"I must have been a weird kid," he said. "All that quiet."
"You were a great kid," Alan said. "It was a lot of fun back then,
mostly."
"Mostly," he said.
They both stared at the girl, who noticed them now, and blushed and
looked confused. Bradley looked away, but Alvin held his gaze on her,
and she whispered to a friend, who looked at him, and they both laughed,
and then Alan looked away, too, sorry that he'd inadvertently interacted
with his fellow students. He was supposed to watch, not participate.
"He was real," Bradley said, and Alan knew he meant Davey.
"Yeah," Alan said.
"I don't think the little ones really remember him -- he's more like a
bad dream to them. But he was real, wasn't he?"
"Yeah," Alan said. "But he's gone now."
"Was it right?"
"What do you mean?" Alan said. He felt a sear of anger arc along his
spine.
"It's nothing," Billy said, mumbling into his tray.
"What do you mean, Brad?" Alan said. "What else should we have done? How
can you have any doubts?"
"I don't," Brad said. "It's okay."
Alan looked down at his hands, which appeared to belong to someone else:
white lumps of dough clenched into hard fists, knuckles white. He made
himself unclench them. "No, it's *not* okay. Tell me about this. You
remember what he was like. What he...did."
"I remember it," Bryan said. "Of course I remember it.
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