At recess Jamie had abjectly apologized to Joby for getting them caught, and when Joby had reached up to put an understanding hand on his large friend's shoulder, Jamie had flinched away as if Joby's touch had burned right through his jacket. It had taken only an instant for Joby to understand and grow sick with shame. Wrapped up in his own misery, he had failed to consider what Jamie's parents would do. With one stupid act, Joby had ruined everything!

Now, sitting with his parents in plain sight of half the school, waiting to be humiliated yet again by Mr. Leonard, Joby stared into the darkness behind his eyes feeling nothing much at all. Miss Stackly had pulled him aside before class and told him that the school wasn't going to press charges. They weren't even going to expel him, but he was going to be suspended and they were going to suggest to his parents that he see someone called a therapist. Miss Stackly had relayed all this in hushed, sympathetic tones, assuring him that she wanted to relieve his fears about the coming meeting between his folks and Mr. Leonard. But Joby had seen the gleam of satisfaction in her eyes, heard the gloating in her voice, and suspected that, behind his back, she was having the time of her life saying "I told you so" to everyone at school.

Joby and his parents stood as Mr. Leonard arrived at last.

"We've all got better places to be," he said, waving them toward his office door. "Let's get this over with."

As he marched in shame behind his silent parents, staring at the floor, Joby thought again of Merlin's advice about offering the enemy no imperfections. Despite the wizard's warnings, it seemed pretty clear that he'd managed to defeat himself before the devil had even shown up to fight.

8.

( A Dork Among Deities ) School had been out for twenty minutes, but biology was Joby's favorite subject, and Mr. Estes always let him stay after and care for the classroom's little zoo. When he'd fed the geckoes their grubs, the tarantulas their crickets, and finished cleaning the aquariums, Joby spent a while in silent communion with all the little captives, then gathered his books and headed out into the hallway.

Turning to make sure the door had latched, he managed to spill the contents of his binder, then smack his head on the door handle as he stooped to pick them up. He spent a moment rubbing the sore spot, but took it otherwise in stride. After three years, his "awkward phase" had still not passed. Nor had he seen any of that growth it was supposed to have foretold. He still looked more like a fifth-grader than the almost fourteen-year-old eighth-grader he was.

Outside, the afternoon was bright and warm with premonitions of spring, though March was still a week away. Hearing the crack of a bat and a swell of approving shouts from the athletic field, Joby remembered that tryouts for the baseball team were today, and wistfully decided to go watch for a minute before walking to his therapy appointment.

Entering the stands, he caught his sleeve on the chain-link gate, ripping it just below the elbow. His mother would not be pleased-or surprised. With a resigned sigh, he sat on the first-row bleacher and spotted Benjamin waiting for his turn at bat between Paul Boser and Jamie Lindwald.

Jamie had grown even huger since grammar school, making him the eighth grade's uncontested giant, but it was Benjamin's lean and chiseled grace that Joby envied. Benjamin's lengthening frame had embraced its growth spurt with no awkward phase at all. Joby's friend had just grown taller, faster, stronger, and better looking on an almost daily basis since sixth grade, until now, watching him hurl a football, swing a bat, or trot with unself-conscious assurance around the diamond, Joby was often left aching with an envy bordering on grief.

After a lame infield pop-up, Boser stepped back and surrendered the bat to Benjamin, who came to the plate, swayed fluidly up into his stance, and eyed the pitcher with hawkish concentration. The pitcher gave him a conspiratorial grin. He and Benjamin were future teammates, not opponents, and Ben was the kind of hero people wanted to be liked by, not the kind they tried to overthrow. That everyone knew Benjamin's best friend was still Joby Peterson was nine-tenths of Joby's social salvation now.

The pitcher stretched back and hurled the ball. Benjamin's swing was as sure and smooth as flowing water, the connection so hard and clean that no one in the field even raised a glove, but only turned to watch in admiration as it sailed up and over the fence. Benjamin watched as well, his satisfaction neither overblown, nor falsely disguised. With a grim smile, he stepped back and handed the bat to Jamie.

Golden, Joby thought. Benjamin is golden.

"Hi, Joby!"

Joby turned to find Laura walking through the chain-link gate to join him. Her hair was short and styled these days, and she'd taken to wearing dresses a lot more often than she had in grammar school, but she still carried herself more like a guy than any other girl he knew. Scanning the lineup, she plopped down beside him, and slapped her books onto the bench.

"You trying out?" she asked without turning from the field to look at him.

"What do you think?" Joby scoffed. She and Benjamin were the only two people in the world who still didn't seem to get that he had lost it-whatever "it" had been.

"I think you psych yourself out," she replied, turning to him with a challenging smile. "But I couldn't care less if you play baseball or not."

"Thanks," Joby said flatly. "You come to watch Benjamin?"

She whirled to look at him as if he'd thrown a slug at her. "I came to say hi to you, you spaz!"

"Oh," he said, "sorry." He was a geek. He'd been a geek for years now. So why did it still surprise him every time he proved it again? Desperate to move the conversation along, he asked, "What did you get on Carlisle's test?"

Laura rolled her eyes, and huffed, "B minus." She tossed her short hair back in irritation. "What'd you get?"

Strike two, Joby thought, not daring to answer, though she saw through his silence instantly. To his relief, she only laughed. "An A, of course. How stupid of me not to guess! Why didn't they just skip you into high school?"

"Too immature," he replied without cracking a smile.

"Joby!" she snorted in disgust. "Can't you ever just-Oh, never mind. Who are you taking to the dance?"

"What dance?"

"The spring dance. . . . Next week? Is there some other dance coming up?"

Joby adopted a comically exaggerated scowl. "Laura, think for a minute about me out on a crowded dance floor! People would get hurt-maybe lots of people. I'd feel responsible." She frowned. "I really would!" he insisted, still hoping for a laugh.

"See?" Laura demanded. "That's what I mean. You've made up this total jinx thing for yourself, and you never give it a rest! How can anyone as smart as you have so much trouble learning to say something nice about himself?"

Strike three. Joby looked glumly away, and said, "I bet Benjamin would give his right arm to take you. He can dance."

With a furious growl, Laura grabbed her books and sprang from the bench. "Joby Peterson!" she screeched. "Sometimes you just make me want to scream myself hoarse!" She whirled angrily away and started toward the gate.

"What?!" Joby demanded. "What did I do now?"

For the fifth time, Miriam went out to peer through the living room windows, then turned to stare at the phone. Joby should have been home from school an hour ago. She had called the school office twice already, and gotten nothing but a recording. She paced beside the fireplace for a moment, then headed back into the kitchen where a meat loaf was taking shape much too slowly.

It wasn't just the nightmares anymore. She was ambushed even in daylight now by overwhelming premonitions of impending disaster as vivid as any TV news flash. She'd even started hearing voices: most often a woman's derisive laughter, though never for more than an instant-just enough to make her start and turn, unsure whether she'd really heard anything at all.

She wiped her hands on her apron, and pressed them to her temples in distress. Was she going crazy? Frank hadn't come right out and said so yet, but he'd implied it often enough. Miriam was sure it was that woman Cally putting such ideas in his head. He'd stopped mentioning her, but he spent half his time down at that damn Filling Station now, and Miriam knew what was going on. She also knew that if she brought it up, Frank would only call it more evidence of her lunacy! She hadn't any proof, and without that, she was helpless.

Dear God! Where is Joby?!

She started for the phone to call the police, then stopped, imagining the derision on Frank's face when he found out. Instead, she went back and began fiercely kneading the meat loaf again. If Frank's love affair with that bar weren't hard enough on her, look at what it had done to Joby's self-esteem! A boy shouldn't have to wait for his father to come home from the bar every afternoon. She wondered how Frank could pay Joby's damn therapy bills every month, and not see- She froze, then closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead, heedless of the grease. How could she have been so stupid? Joby was at his therapy appointment. She shook her head in helpless self-loathing. Thank God she hadn't called the police. She stared blankly at the meat loaf for a moment, then she sagged onto a stool by the counter, and began to cry.

Somehow, somewhere, everything had gone so wrong. If only there were someone to help her, someone to . . . to show her how to fix it all. Oh, God, she thought. Oh, God, please, please, help us!

It had been so many years since she had prayed that at first she didn't realize what she was doing; but the minute she did, it was as if someone had spoken straight to her heart, and told her exactly what her mistake had been. She had been a fool to think she didn't need God's help. Maybe, she thought, if she returned to Him, He would return to them. She got up and nearly ran to the phone book. If she was lucky, morning Mass would be late enough somewhere that she could go after Frank and Joby were gone.

"No, Cally. It's my fault," Frank sighed. "Mason and Meyer would still be Mason, Meyer, and Peterson if I'd just kept my resentment to myself. The whole damn Goldtree fiasco would be nothing but a bad memory by now if it weren't for my goddamn pride!"

Cally gazed at Frank as if he were a pouty child. "I still say you're way too hard on yourself, Frank. You had every right to be angry."

Frank traced lines in the frost on his beer glass, and shook his head pensively. "Not for what it's cost my family. I should have bit my tongue and ridden it out." He took a long pull on his beer, then stared at the glass as if it held the ashes of his favorite dog. "The whole thing's driven Miriam right to the edge, Cally . . . and it's destroying Joby." Frank drained his glass, then looked up at Cally as if hoping she'd give in and berate him.

"Want another?" she asked.

"No. I should be going."

He made no move to leave, however, only sat staring morosely at his empty glass. "He used to be such . . . such an incredible little kid. Now, I can hardly look at him without dying of shame."

"Kids go through rough phases," Cally said, turning away to wipe down her back counter, "but they don't lose themselves forever."

"All I ever wanted," Frank murmured, "was to be a good husband, and a good father, Cally. Even in high school, I dreamed of having a family. Now I do, and I'm just . . . letting them down." There was a pressure in his chest that made him want to smash all the glasses behind the bar, or shoot out the mirror, or crash through the plate-glass window, but he couldn't seem to move. He could hardly even breathe. "What's wrong with me?" he whispered harshly.

"You know, Frank," Cally said, turning back to face him, "I'm not going to feed this little pity party you've got going." She tossed her hair back, and offered him a reproachful grin. "There's simply nothing wrong with you!" She leaned forward to look him in the eye. "Miriam and Joby are two lucky, lucky people. If you'd just get that through your pretty head," she ran her fingers playfully through his hair, "the rest of this would sort itself out in no time at all." She leaned away again, continuing to wipe down her countertops.

She was so pretty. . . . And so kind. Almost . . . almost he told her about the depraved nightmare that still plagued him after all these years. A hundred times, he'd wanted to, sure that she'd understand, that she might even know how to make it stop. But just thinking of it now made him loathe himself; Joby hiding in that locker, his thumb jammed between lips smeared with lipstick, clutching at his little dress. . . .

No, if Cally ever saw how sick Frank really was inside, he'd never be able to look her in the face again. . . . As if she'd ever want him to.

When Benjamin went to Joby's house on Saturday morning and found him already out, he didn't need to ask where he was. A short time later, he found Joby at their old tournament field bent down in the new spring grass, peering at something beneath the oak tree Laura Bayer had fallen out of back when they were kids.

"Whatcha lookin' at, Joby?" Benjamin called as he started across the clearing.

"Damselflies," Joby replied without standing or turning.

Benjamin crouched carefully beside him, and saw two tiny turquoise dragonflies balanced atop a stalk of wild oat. One of the creatures was perched on the other's back, its long tail arched to clasp its companion.

"What are they doing?" Benjamin asked. "Fighting?"

"They're mating," Joby said with scientific dispassion.

Mating. The word evoked a slew of exciting, if somewhat embarrassing, associations in Benjamin's mind. It had been almost a year since he had begun to notice how good it felt to lie in bed at night wearing nothing but his skin, and a mere six months since he had discovered that certain even more awesome sensations could be conjured without waiting for sleep or dreams.

"Joby?" he said uncertainly. "Have you . . . do you ever think about-" As the word "sex" balanced on his tongue, Joby turned to face him with the same clinical regard he had trained on the damselflies. Feeling his cheeks flame, Benjamin aborted the question.

"About what?" Joby pressed.

"Nothing. . . . It . . . nothing." Suddenly, he knew that Joby wouldn't . . . that he surely hadn't . . . that he would think Benjamin a freak.

"Come on," Joby insisted. "What were you going to say?"

Benjamin scrambled for some plausible substitution. "Do you ever think about the Roundtable?"

Joby looked back down at the damselflies, his clinical expression replaced by sullen embarrassment. "Course not," he said. "I'm no kid anymore."

Benjamin was surprised at Joby's tone and at the depth of his own disappointment. Whole landscapes of memory stirred in Benjamin's mind, awakening thoughts that had been dormant for years. "Do you still believe in that quest?" he asked. "You know . . . against the enemy?"

"What do you think?" Joby mumbled scornfully.

"I don't know!" Benjamin said. "That's why I'm askin'!"

"Whadaya want me to say? That I still sit around figuring out how to visit Camelot, and help King Arthur fight the devil?" Joby swiped angrily at his suddenly reddening eyes. "I don't need you making fun of me too, Benjamin. There's enough people doing that."

"I'm not making fun of you!" Benjamin protested. "I . . . I just always wondered what happened to," he threw his hands up, "all that. . . . I miss it."

Joby sighed, seeming to fall in on himself. "I'm sorry, Ben. It's just that . . . I wish I could still believe it. You have no idea how much." He turned to stare off into the thickets that had been their boar-hunting forest in better times. "You remember that dream I used to have? . . . The one with all the candles?"

Benjamin nodded.

"I still have it," Joby said. "All the time. . . . And I wake up feeling like somebody punched my soul right out of my stomach, and I have no idea where they put it."

Benjamin reached out and punched his shoulder, deciding it was time to change the subject. "You takin' Laura to the dance?" he asked.

"She asked me . . . but I can't dance. I told her that, but she got so mad I don't think she'd go anywhere with me now." Joby looked tentatively at Benjamin. "You should ask her."

"Me? Joby, you are such a dork! She doesn't wanna go with me!"

"Why not?"

" 'Cause she's got a crush this big on Joby Peterson!" he laughed, stretching out his arms. "You must be blind, Joby! Just go with her, and stand around if you want to. Trust me. She's not gonna care if you dance."

"Why would she want to go stand around with the class spaz?" Joby frowned.

"Joby, if you don't take Laura to the dance, I'm gonna tell every guy at school you wear purple underwear, and suck your thumb at night."

"No you won't." Joby grimaced. "That's disgusting, Benjamin."

"Yes, I will, Joby." He was careful not to smile. "I'm dead serious. Nothin's gonna happen at that dance half as embarrassing as what I'll do to you if you chicken out, so get your butt in gear and ask her. It's time you got a clue, Peterson."

"Who are you taking, Vierra?"

"I," Benjamin said, hoping to cover his embarrassment with a casual tone, "am going with Duane and Jamie, and Johnny Mayhew."

"Oh! So I have to ask a girl, but you're going with the baseball team?"

"I'm just keeping myself free to dance with lots of girls!" Benjamin bragged, hoping Joby would buy it. "Believe me, though. If I had someone like Laura drooling over me, I'd take her!"

"Okay," Joby moped, "I'll ask her, but if she says no, you can't get me for that."

"She won't." Benjamin grinned. "Shall we shake on it, Sir Joby?"

The big night arrived. Joby's mom had gotten him a new set of slacks and a button-down shirt for the occasion, and Joby had purchased a small cluster of freesia and iris at the supermarket florist, remembering how Laura had liked them so long ago in the hospital. He'd even spent half an hour in the bathroom before dinner, combing his hair. Feeling nervous and excited, he opened the refrigerator and looked in to make sure the flowers hadn't wilted, then sat down with his parents to eat dinner.

The hiccups started halfway through his meal. They got so bad, so quickly, that he had to stop eating and lie down in the living room. But they only got worse, becoming surprisingly painful, until it was hard for him to breathe. His mother made him lean forward and swallow cups of water, eat spoonfuls of granulated sugar, and breathe into a paper bag, but nothing helped. Finally, half an hour before he and his dad were supposed to go pick up Laura, Joby went to his room, as much to escape his father's disapproving scowls as his mother's increasingly frantic ministrations. He had never heard of such hiccups. They were bearable as long as he remained lying down, but the minute he stood, they became huge gasping spasms that hurt his throat, and threatened to burst his lungs.

Ten minutes before they were supposed to leave, Joby's father came into his room, trying to look amused.

"Hiccups, eh?" he said wryly, sitting down at Joby's bedside. "I got a rash before my first date. I ever tell you that, son?"

Joby shook his head, fearing that speaking might make his hiccups worse.

His father patted his arm, and looked away. "It's always scary to do things we've never done," he said. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Remember how scary it was learning to ride your bike? But you weren't sorry you tried, were you?"

Since they'd never given his bike back to him, Joby didn't think the example a very good one, but he shook his head anyway.

Seeming to realize his mistake as well, Joby's dad grinned crookedly, and said, "You know, it's probably long past time you got that bike back. I'll talk with your mother about it while you're at the dance."

Unable to believe this sudden burst of luck, Joby started to sit up, only to be wracked by another loud and painful spasm, forcing him to lie back down again.

"I can't go," he groaned. "I can't even stand up."