Tim Hereid

By the time he was five years old, Ben had learned how to disappear. In his earlier years, he couldn’t read the signals, and his ears suffered for it. His father would smack him upside the head, the back of his hand connecting with Ben’s ear, almost always his right one. He might yank Ben’s ear if he’d committed some minor annoyance like leaving a Duplo lego out in the middle of the floor or not remembering to bring his dishes to the sink after breakfast. Even now his ears carried the residual redness and puffiness of years of impacts. His right ear stuck from the side of his head like a misshapen flag of a nation whose chief export was beets or strawberries. His left was less noticeable unless another kids got close and noticed the swelling, a phenomenon called cauliflowering, which one of his doctors had inquired about in concerned tones a year ago. Since then, Ben had not been back to the doctor. 

Now that he was twelve years old, Ben found himself still afraid and not only for himself but for his eight-year old sister Brianna as well. Ben knew how to slip away in the minutes before the notes in his father’s voice lifted from simmering belligerence to full on rage-machine. It took skill to hide, but he taught it to Brianna earlier than he’d learned it so that her ears, especially when they were hidden by her long auburn hair, didn’t appear at all different from the other girls, and she knew enough to vanish as he did just at the right moment. 

He knew from reading books about kids like him, kids with fathers (or sometimes mothers) whose hands formed fists as easily as they gripped a can of beer or glass of brandy, that the object of an angry person’s wrath was usually the nearest person. He made sure he and Brianna were never in the room when his father’s shouting made the TV cart in the living room creak. 

It always made Ben guilty to leave his mother as the target of his father’s anger, but he knew his mother wanted it that way, that if she couldn’t avoid it herself, then at least Ben and Brianna were safe from him, at least this time. 

Then two years ago, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. Dad said it was the “bad kind”, but Ben thought all cancer was probably pretty bad. She seemed to get sicker by the day. The treatments she was getting left her exhausted which put his father in charge of more and more of the household. Most of the important things like grocery shopping, cleaning the house, packing lunches for Ben and Brianna and washing clothes were left undone. He wondered whether his father didn’t notice or didn’t care. Mom died a few months later. That was more than a year ago. He still felt her around, sometimes even heard her, or thought he did, expected to look up and see her there in the kitchen or sitting at his bedside. He thought sometimes he saw her as he and Brianna walked to school, but it was always someone else, another woman with short brown hair. She’d left a space in his life he couldn’t fill. For Brianna, he hoped he could fill a part of that void.

Ben worried each afternoon that his father would already be in a rage when they returned home from school and that he wouldn’t be able to spare or protect Brianna. Today, his father was in the garage when they came home. It was rare to see his father working and the sight of it, of dad lying underneath the old Chrysler that hadn’t worked as long as Ben had been alive, reassured him. Anything that occupied his father and kept him away from the refrigerator and the beer inside it worked for Ben. 

He made himself and Brianna some orange juice out of frozen concentrate and placed some chips in a bowl then thought about turning on the TV, but that meant if his dad came back in they’d be caught in one place. Better to just eat and go out again down to his friend Mahmoud’s place like usual. 

“You ready?” he asked, but Brianna already had her shoes back on. She usually spent afternoons at her friend Amanda’s house, a place Ben knew was safe and where Brianna often ate dinner just as he did at Mahmoud’s. 

“Did you clean up everything?” he asked her.  

“Yeah,” she nodded. 

“Even the crumbs because…” 

“Yes, Ben. I know how to clean up.” 

“You’d better,” he said, walking back into the kitchen to check, but Brianna had left the counter spotless. “OK, c’mon.” 

Brianna turned at first corner, heading out for Amanda’s house. Ben suspected Amanda’s mom felt sorry for them, but didn’t know quite what to do about it. That was the case with most adults, so he didn’t blame her. It was the other adults, the ones who got concerned and wanted to ask questions and see if he wouldn’t like to talk to someone about it that scared him. It sometimes meant a Child Services worker would call his father or even come to the house, sometimes with the police and then Ben would pay over and over again for that for weeks. 

This had happened more when he was younger. It didn’t make sense for a boy to have black and blue bruises on his ears each day. He remembered the pain of those years in particular. He couldn’t sleep on his side or stomach because it hurt to much to put his ear on the pillow, so he learned slowly and fitfully to sleep on his back. Those were bad days. 

With mom gone and the responsibility of keeping Brianna safe from his father floating like a dark presence over his shoulder, his burdens seemed heavier. These days were even worse.

Chapter 2

He walked the remaining few blocks to Maumoud’s, feeling once again safe because his father rarely ventured out of the house except to go to work, and now that he’d been laid off or fired—Ben knew enough not to ask which—he was always home. 

A great forest rose behind the houses on his block, a wildlife preserve that spanned several hundred acres where no hunting was allowed. A single grassy hiking trail wound through the edge of the preserve, allowing the attentive nature watcher a peek at crane and mink and deer and grouse and maybe even the rumored lynx that prowled the interior. The center of the forest was dotted with half a dozen lakes and contained a great impenetrable bog. 

Adults told cautionary tales of children lost in the forest, sucked down into the bog’s thick muck. More imaginative storytellers, told of giant gray leeches that swam the shallow waters of the lakes waiting for the errant footfall of a foolish child. Then they would wrap their largess around their victim’s tender skin and suck them dry. Ben didn’t believe this last part, but even so, he’d never traveled to the interior. Other kids, including his friend Remy, claimed they had, but he doubted it. 

The whole Preserve was thousands of acres according the map he kept on his wall, a gift from his den leader during his brief time in Scouts last year. The main and only trail through it, other than the ones made illegally, stretched 22 miles and brought hikers within view of a few but not nearly all of the lakes inside. 

He’d ventured off trail a few times, only to find a mile of cattails or thick sumac or six foot grass blocking not only his way but also cutting off his view of where he was. He didn’t want to get lost in there, and he knew from Scouts that the easiest way to get lost was to lose sight of your landmarks. 

The Preserve ran behind all the  houses on this side of the street, but on streets like the one he walked now, it grew right up to the curb, its border birches and white pines rising up taller than any house in the neighborhood. There, at the edges, the bracken grew close enough Ben couldn’t see more than a few dozen feet into the woods, and he always hurried past on fall days like this when the early afternoon’s fading light made black silhouettes of the trees. On fall nights, he could believe the stories about leeches longer than he was and boy-eating bears and rabid wolves and everything else the Preserve was rumored to contain. 

So Ben rubbed his arms as he strolled past where the Preserve grew closest to the sidewalk, not shivering, of course. He wouldn’t shiver. He wasn’t scared, but the air suddenly felt colder and the phrase ‘whistling past the graveyard’ came into his mind among a thousand terrifying other things. The creak of the basement steps. The way that boy in that one horror movie had bled from his eyes as Ben secretly watched from the top of the stairs last year as his dad lay asleep in the easy chair. He glanced into the woods, scared to look but even more scared not to. 

He looked then froze. A strange sound emitted from the air around him, a  moaning and after a moment Ben realized it was coming from his own mouth. 

Just ahead, in the woods, something shimmered. What looked like splinter of arm-length glass hovered suspended in the air. Or maybe not glass. As he moved it appeared more like a narrow strip of plastic wrap stretched from a point just off the ground up diagonally to another point just above his head. A bit of plastic bag maybe, caught on a branch on one end and wound up on the bottom end in some weeds on the ground. He moved closer, and as he did, the light hitting the glass or cellophane or whatever it was changed, reflecting off different parts of it. It was wider than he’d thought. He stepped closer, his shoes toeing the edge of the sidewalk. 

The light played off of it and then the thing vanished. He stepped back and it reappeared, the sun’s rays setting off a pink glow. He stepped off the sidewalk and into the weeds at the edge of the Preserve, moving closer and closer and reached out until his fingers touched the glimmer in the air. He snatched his hand back. 

What just happened? In the light it had seemed like his hand vanished a moment, just when he reached out to touch the thing. Was that possible? He examined his hand, found it perfectly intact and reached out again. It disappeared. He reached further inside watching as his arm was swallowed up. He yanked his arm back so fast he stumbled backward and tripped over the edge of the walk, falling onto his back. 

There was a hole. In the air. He lay there breathing, unable to understand what he’d just seen. 

“Uh, you good?” 

He looked up to see Maumoud staring down at him. The other boy ran a hand through  his tight, dark curls and gazed at him with one perfectly cocked eyebrow. 

He waved a hand in front of Ben’s face. “Hello?” 

Ben ignored him, instead scrambling to his feet. Where was it? It had just been there. He ran back up the sidewalk, turned around and then slowly, taking one slow step at the time, approached the spot in the woods. 

Maumoud gave him a look of alarm. “Are you okay? Did your dad—?” 

Ben shook his head furiously. Maumoud had to see this. He had to show him. 

“Dude. I—there’s a hole there. Like a—a door or something. In the air.” 

“A door…in the air…” Mahmoud repeated looking around. Then he smiled.  “Good one, I guess? Is this a prank? It’s not very good bro, I gotta say.” 

“No. There’s like a weird…frickin’—I don’t know. A thing!” 

The other boy’s face creased in confusion

“Be quiet.” Ben snapped flapping his hand for emphasis.

“I didn’t say anything.” 

Ben stared at the lengthening shadows in the wood. He couldn’t find it. “Sorry. Sorry. I just—seriously. Do you see like a shine in the air?” 

Mahmoud frowned and looked around. He shrugged. 

“In the woods, man.” Ben pointed. 

“I don’t know, man. I’m hungry. I came to get you because you’re like half an hour late.” 

“No I’m not.” 

“Okay.” 

“I’m not. It’s like 4, right?” 

“Um, 4:30. You gonna eat with us again?” 

Ben didn’t hear the question. He was venturing back into the woods, his arms extended forward, watching his hands to see whether they would disappear again. 

“Maybe you’re dehydrated.” Mahmoud began. “My mom’s always on me about ‘Mahmoud you drink! Drink! Water, water, water all day.’” He said, adopting an exaggerated version of his mom’s Somali accent, which usually made Ben laugh. Usually Mahmoud would follow it up with an impression of his father like “You know Benjamin, I named you after me and I expect you to treat your name with respect. Back in my day…” 

Ben didn’t laugh. He wasn’t even listening. He was coming to the realization he couldn’t find it again. Maybe it had disappeared or maybe he just couldn’t find the right spot in the dark. He realized all at once he was standing knee deep in the woods in the dark and the hole—the glimmer, the thing, whatever—was gone. 

Chapter 3

Ben ate in a sort of stupor. There was a hole in the woods. No, a gate. Maybe to another world. Like Narnia or Jordan College or —. He didn’t know. He tried to stop the thousands of questions unfolding in his brain and focus on the food in front of him. 

He could never really get enough injera. It was a soft, almost pancake like bread without the sweetness but instead a perfect tang that combined divinely with the curried potatoes Mahmoud’s mother, Halima  prepared. 

“How is school, Benjamin?” Mahmoud’s father asked, dabbing his mouth with a yellow cloth napkin. He fixed Ben with an entreating gaze. 

Ben moaned inwardly. Mahmoud’s father didn’t accept responses like “fine” or “pretty good”. If Ben tried that, he’d be in for a long story about Mohammad’s schooling in Somali during the civil war and how he valued each and every day he had gotten to spend in his classroom in Gaunaka, one of the smaller cities in the south. He swallowed. 

“Good.” 

Mohammad’s mouth twitched, the corners almost imperceptibly moving into a frown. 

“I mean, I did well on my math quiz. And in science we’re learning about cells, sir.” 

Now Mahmoud’s father did frown. “You didn’t tell me that, Mahmoud.” 

“Sorry. I was going to.” He said, adding placating whine to his tone as he shot Ben a dark look. “I wanted to make sure we had time to talk about it.” 

“Your brother Diric hated Science, you know. But now he’s studying it in college. It goes to show…” 

“I know, dad.” 

Mahmoud’s older brother Diric was finishing up his degree in Bioengineering, a field Ben didn’t really understand but which had something to do with changing the way genes worked to make people healthy. Mahmoud didn’t really like the comparisons between he and Diric, partly because he wasn’t interested in Science and Engineering but more in books and computer science, but also because while Diric was a good student, he was kind of a wild man. Only Mahmoud seemed to know it, however. 

“Oh? Well, we have time, don’t we?” Mohammad said, patting his stomach and leaning back into his chair. “Now tell me where you’re starting. Organelles, I suppose. Can you tell me the different between the organelles of an animal and a plant cell?” 

And then he had them. If you couldn’t answer the Mohammad’s questions, you were in for a lecture. He made sure to try to enjoy his food as Mahmoud’s father launched into concepts like respiration and the Kreb’s cycle and oxygen exchange and how trees and plants actually breathed in reverse of the way humans did, breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen. 

The animated way Mahmoud’s father explained it almost made it interesting, and Ben found himself beginning to understand the edges of the things being discussed, now not only by Mohammad but by Halima as well, who corrected Mohammad on several points. Halima was in college now, in a biology class in fact, training to be something called a nurse practitioner, which meant, Ben was pretty sure was a kind of super nurse that was like a doctor except not called that for some reason. 

“Mohammad will keep you boys all night,” his mother said, smiling wryly at Maumoud’s father. “And you have homework to do.” 

Before Ben left, he felt Samsa’s hand on his shoulder. “How are you doing?” 

“Good.” He said without meeting her eyes. 

“You know you can come here if…anytime.” 

“I know.” 

“And if you need anything, you have to tell us.” Samsa’s dark eyes searched his face, lingering on his ears which were turning red all on their own. 

“I will.”

“Mom! Leave him alone now. He has to do homework,” Mahmoud said, cocking an eyebrow ironically. 

“Yes, yes, son. And I know someone else who probably wants to start their own homework before their father begins another lecture.” 

Chapter 4

After dinner, Ben stopped by Amanda’s house to pick up Brianna, and they walked home together in the dark. 

“Do you think he’s asleep?” his sister asked. 

“It’s almost 7:30,” Ben assured her. “He’ll either be in front of the TV or passed out. We can go in the back like usual.” 

She was walking slowly as she always did on their way back. He knew if she could live with the Holtons she would. Ben didn’t feel that way. It wasn’t that he couldn’t imagine himself living with Mahmoud’s family. He’d imagined it several times, spinning scenarios out with Mahmoud about sharing a room and building a tree house in the backyard, in one of the few oaks that dotted the edge of the Preserve, sleeping there all summer. But then he and Brianna would be split up. He wouldn’t let the happen. Plus, a part of him knew dad didn’t do well without other people around. Not that he should be concerned about dad. That was dad’s job, but Ben remembered the man who could sometimes play with him joyfully and gently, who took him to car shows twice and bought him fried donuts and as much soda as he could drink. He wished that man would show up someday. He had to be in there, inside his father somewhere, didn’t he? 

His father’s life was series of burned bridges, loans he didn’t pay back, lost jobs and broken relationships. Most days, like today, Ben wanted to be as far from him as possible. Those thoughts were always edged out, though, by an unwavering sense that his father actually couldn’t be alone. That if left too long, his father would just…what? Fall apart, Ben guessed. He couldn’t explain, even to himself, what that meant but there was a lost look in his father’s eyes when they weren’t bleary from his last drink or red with irritation. 

He’d automatically slowed his pace for his sister, but now they crawled along at a box turtle’s pace toward the house. She pulled out her ever-present stick of raspberry lip gloss. Inwardly, Ben groaned. She’d gotten her first stick from Amanda last year, and now neither of two girls went anywhere without it. The scent of candied raspberries bloomed in the air as Brianna stopped to carefully apply it. 

“C’mon,” he said, sharper than he’d meant to. 

“He’ll be asleep, right?” she said, smacking her lips together nervously. 

“Yes. Why?” 

Brianna sagged. “No reason.” 

“Bri?” 

“What?” 

“You know it’s easier to tell me when there’s something bothering you, right? Then I can help.” 

“Fine,” she sighed. “I got into a fight today. My teacher said she was going to call home.” 

“Mrs. Vazquez? That must have been a hell of a fight.” He stopped to look at her. His sister’s straight auburn hair hung over her face and he noticed a stain on her blue coveralls. Was that from the fight? “Wait, are you okay?” 

“Not, like, an actual fight.” Brianna said, treating him to one of her signature eye rolls. “Glenda Hodges and I just yelled at each other. Ms. Vazquez said we were screaming, but it was just yelling.” 

Ben tried to think of the difference between the two and failed. “In class?” 

“Yeah,” she scrunched up her face. “Glenda said I had old clothes on.” 

“What does that mean?” he said as if he didn’t know. 

“Like these,” she said, holding out her arms and gesturing to shirt as evidence. “Mom always bought clothes for us at garage sales and now…” 

“Yeah, I get it. Sorry. Some kid said pretty much the same thing to me like last week. I know Ms. Vazquez, and I really don’t think she’s going to call.”

“Really?” 

He nodded. “Probably not. She just likes to threaten that to get kids to stop and besides, I think she knows dad is, you know…weird.” 

“Yeah,” Brianna straightened some and picked up the pace. “I hope she doesn’t call.”

“Me too.”  

A slight chill rode in on the wind as they walked the last few blocks home on the sidewalk skirting the edge of the Preserve. Ben thought of crossing the street to keep away from the woods, but it would make no sense. Their house was on this side. And then Brianna would just ask why. 

“Hey,” he said, eyeing her sideways. “You ever see anything in the woods?” 

Brianna tensed. “Stop trying to scare me, Ben.” 

“I’m not. Promise. I’m just wondering. You know all those stories.”

“Sure,” she said, giving him an unsure look. 

“Just—did you ever see anything?” 

“Like a monster?” she said, raising her eyebrows. 

“No, not a monster, obviously.” 

“Then what?” 

Ben opened his mouth, closed it again then said “Whatever. I was just…being stupid.” 

“Yeah, kind of,” she agreed. 

As their house came into view, Ben could clearly see the television’s blue light flickering through the front window. 

“See? He’s probably passed out.” 

“Okay.” Brianna nodded. 

Ben wondered whether he’s seen her shiver slightly. He hated this. The fear, the concern for his sister, the constant worrying about whether dad was around and what his mood was. An electric energy crackled in his stomach. Not anxiety exactly. It was like anger but different. He pushed it away. 

They snuck in the back door, stepping first on the corner of the rug then giant-stepping over to the coat rack, using the places in the floor they knew were the quietest. They closed the door slowly and silently, hung up their coats and bags and gave each other a nod.  

The television murmured from the living room. His father might hear them, but if they stayed quiet enough, he often didn’t even register their presence. Obviously, his father preferred to ignore them anyway. If he didn’t, he might remember to do things like say, make dinner, or pack lunches or give them lunch money. So far this year, the principal and lunch lady let both he and Brianna eat for free at school. Ben wondered how long it would last. 

Sometimes it felt like everyone looked at him with sad, pitying eyes then did nothing. Why didn’t someone come and…what? Help them, he guessed. Make his father do the things he was supposed to do, bring his mother back. But when they did, when the police or child services came his dad was different, suddenly an adult, responsible and charming. Ben wished he and Brianna could see that side of him once in a while. 

He knew all of this was fantasy, the thoughts of little kids. Mom wasn’t coming back and even if she was, what would it really change? The worst years of Ben’s life were the ones in which mom was around and his father’s rage shook the walls nearly every day. But then he didn’t worry about his sister. His mom took care of that most of the time. 

 They waited in the silence, hearing nothing but the TV. Ben sniffed the air. 

“I think you need a bath,” he whispered. 

“Hey!” she hissed. 

“I’m serious,” he sniffed under his own armpit. “So do I.” 

“Ew.” 

“You can go first. Go ahead,” he said, nodding toward the stairs. 

She shot him a look of panic. 

“Okay,” he said, raising his hands. “I’ll check it out first.” 

The stairs led up from the living room, so each night when they came back, they had to cross into dad’s line of view. Usually, he was either already asleep on the couch, too drunk to notice or somewhere else like out at a bar or wherever he went, stumbling loudly in the early morning hours. Ben peeked around the corner. His father took a swig of beer, staring at the television on which a golfer took a practice swing. His father didn’t golf. He didn’t, as far as Ben knew, even like golf. 

Dad wore a battered Brewers baseball cap, a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. He’d grown a dark, patchy beard in time since their mother had died. It grew long around his cheeks and at the ends of his mustache but stayed short around the chin and lips, giving his father a sort of bizarre bulldog look that even Ben knew looked terrible. Dad didn’t turn or even seem to notice him. Ben waved Brianna toward him. 

She hunched and made it up the first few stairs before his father said “Brianna.” 

“Yeah?” she said without turning. 

Dad hadn’t taken his eyes off the TV. “Ms. Vazquez called.” 

Now Ben could see Brianna’s hand tremble. 

“Oh yeah?” she said. 

His father muted the television. That was a bad sign. Television was a sort of palliative to his father—a word he’d learned from listening to Halima talk about nursing school. Without it, his behavior was even more unpredictable. Silence fell like an axe. 

“Yeah. Now come on down here and explain this to me.” 

Brianna didn’t hesitate. She knew not to. Any seeming lack of respect was treating with instant punishment. 

“Sorry dad. I was going to tell you,” she said, standing at the edge of the carpet and clasping her hands together. 

Ben stayed at the foot of the stairs. He knew not to say anything unless…well unless he had to. The usual plunging feeling in his gut, the raw fear wasn’t there tonight. The peculiar electric buzz had replaced it. He felt…light. Above this situation. Watching it, but as though apart from it. Seeing everything, all at once but unafraid. 

“Well, you can tell me now,” he said with an edge to his voice. Dad was drunk. And irritated. 

“I just—you know how girls—” 

“I know,” he nodded, cutting her off. “You need your clothes. All about the clothes at your age, isn’t it? Your mother told me this would come. Now even the teachers are into it. ” 

“Uh, yeah.” 

He took a swig of beer. “Ms. Vazquez, she’s kind of a pushy bitch, huh?”

Brianna hesitated. 

“No, you don’t have to answer that. I won’t make you speak ill of your teachers even if they deserve it. Anyway, she said she’ll have the outfits ready for you tomorrow.” 

“Outfits?” 

“For the play,” he said, annoyance edging into his tone. “You’re doing some sort of in-class play and have to have costumes and costume changes, whatever. You get to keep the clothes after.”

“Oh.” Brianna seemed at a loss. 

“Didn’t sound right to me.” 

Ben forced himself to laugh. “Yeah, that’s right,” he lied. “I remember that when I had her.” 

His father frowned and Ben held his breath. “You didn’t get any clothes.” 

“I did the set design,” he improvised. 

“Did you? Shows my memory is going. Well, so anyway, if I see you with new clothes I know you didn’t steal them, eh?” 

“Right,” Brianna gave a nervous giggle. 

“Right.” He said and flipped the TV back on. 

After a moment, Ben waved her again toward him and they went upstairs together. Once Brianna was done, Ben showered and forced himself to brush his teeth, which he hated, but since they were out of floss and had been ever since mom died, at he didn’t have to force himself to floss. He got into bed and picked up the book he and Mahmoud were reading together. They always chose books by common agreement so they could talk about them, which meant they could only read stories if the library had two copies or if Mahmoud could get his parents to buy him a copy, which he sometimes could. This week they were reading Dragons of Midnight Thunder. He was halfway through and in the part where the hero Aeylfidor had tamed the dragon Mysterion and found the gateway through the Endless Mist into an unnamed lush valley beyond which held the ruins of an ancient kingdom, and one, Ben predicted, that held the treasure they’d long sought. That much had been hinted at throughout the book. He wondered whether Mahmoud had picked up on it yet. 

“Ben?”

He looked up. Brianna stood in his doorway. 

She opened her mouth then closed it, came in and shut the door. 

“Why would Ms. Vazquez get me clothes?” 

He’d wondered the same thing but figured it out. “It’s like the lunch lady, you know?” 

“What do you mean?” 

Ben gave her a look of disbelief. Third graders were so oblivious. “She gives us a free lunch everyday because Principal Davis tells her to.” 

“Because of mom?” 

Ben scoffed. “Or because of dad. Take your pick.” 

“It feels weird, Ms. Vazquez buying me clothes.” 

“It feels weird with mom gone, so add it to the pile.” 

“I guess.” She shrugged, and Ben could see the worry bleed out of her. She brightened. “I hope she picked something good.” 

“My guess is you’re going to look better than Glenda Hodges.” 

Brianna’s eyes got big at this. “Really?” 

“Yeah. Maybe” 

“Okay, good night, Benny.” 

“Night, Bri.” 

Some hours later, Ben woke to his father’s heavy, uncertain footfalls on the stairs and the creak of his father’s bed as his father collapsed into it. This probably meant it would be ten hours before his father woke up. Ben checked his alarm clock, which said 1:37am then settled into a dreamless sleep. 

Chapter 5

Mrs. Herrera paced at the front of the room, a look of comical disbelief on her face. 

“No one?” 

Herrera liked to pose impossible questions then act mystified that not a single student could answer them. Ben found it a welcome break from the daily toil of Geometry proofs, on which the teacher had drilled the class all year. 

The words floated in roughly slashed letters on the white board: 

If the first three dimensions are length, width and depth and the fourth dimension is time, what is the fifth dimension

Herrera’s penmanship was a constant source of comedy for students, but no one laughed today because day Herrera was on a tear about contributing in class. 

“Guys, we’ve talked about this,” the teacher scolded, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “This isn’t about a right answer. This is about taking a stab at something. Trying something, anything.” 

Next to Ben, Mahmoud fidgeted. Ben cocked an exaggerated eyebrow, clowning Mahmoud a little but also trying to see if he had an idea. Fidgeting was Mahmoud’s other go-to move in addition to the raised eyebrow thing. Ahead of him, Remy Ortiz, Ben’s best friend other than Mahmoud, tightened the pony tail barely containing her brown curls before turning back to sketch in her journal. Remy said it was the only way she could listen in class. He craned his neck to get a look at the image. Even though he couldn’t quite see it, he was sure the drawing was either  the dragon Mysterion from Dragons of Midnight Thunder or a new design for her dream tree house that her mother refused to let her build in their backyard. 

Of all the teachers, Mrs. Herrera’s methods were probably closest to Mahmoud’s father’s. As Ben had learned at dinner after dinner and class after class, neither Mohammad nor Mrs. Herrera would let an easy answer slide. And clamming up? That strategy just landed you with more and harder questions. 

“C’mon. Don’t your English teachers tell you to just put something, anything down on paper? That getting started writing is the hardest part, but once you have something written you can edit it, improve it?” 

“Not really,” Vilek said from the second row. 

A few students laughed, those who probably didn’t quite get the exercise. The rest of the class was divided into two other groups: Those who’d checked out of math years ago, convinced they weren’t “good” at math—which mystified Ben since the only way you got good at something was practice—and the last group which, like him, actually liked these little exercises even if they weren’t quite sure what the answer was. 

Mahmoud picked at the edge of his desk, seeming deep in thought. Ben leaned over and put his elbow on the desk then straightened when Herrera looked his way. 

“Well…” Mrs. Herrera appeared stymied. “Look, putting something out there is crucial. It’s a first step to finding real answers. At one point, no one knew of the existence of black holes. Then, one scientist, one thinker said the universe is such that some thing like a black hole must exist. It turned out, he was right. But most other scientists disagreed with him. They thought he was wrong. He very well could have been. This same scientist was wrong about a lot of things, but he took the risk of taking a stab at it.” 

“Let me guess? Was it Einstein?” Vilek asked in an ironic tone. 

“Why yes it was,” Mr. Herrera nodded, feigning surprise. “What a smart, young lad we have here, class.” 

Vilek chuckled and slapped a hand to his forehead. Albert Einstein was a sort of obsession with Mrs. Herrera. Maybe that was a sort of obvious hero for a math teacher, but Herrera knew more than anyone about the man, having read almost every book and watched every documentary she could get her hands on. She even travelled to Jerusalem to read Einstein’s personal papers. She’d described it one day in excruciating detail. The incredible library, touching documents the Einstein himself had once touched. Its sounded Mrs. Herrera went through Einstein’s mail or something. She even said she was writing a book about Einstein’s life, about his effect on public enthusiasm for math and science. 

“Guys, look at the board. Take your shot. What’s the fifth dimension?” 

“Scale.” Mahmoud said. 

He said it so quietly Ben didn’t even register the words until a moment later when Herrera smiled. The teacher had an uncanny sense of hearing, allowing her to pinpoint the source of a correct answer or a muttered insult in a classroom of restless students or even a cacophonous lunchroom. 

“An intriguing submission! ” Mrs. Herrera’s smile grew so big her eyes nearly closed. “Tell us what you mean, Mr. Warsame.” 

Ben’s mind raced. Scale. What did Mahmoud mean? He looked over at the other boy. Now Mahmoud wasn’t fidgeting; he was frozen stiff. Ben pressed his lips together. Mahmoud might be his gregarious, charming self with him and their friend Remy or even at recess with a small group of other kids, but when put on the spot in class, he just couldn’t speak. 

“I think,” Ben began, his mind flying through possibilities. “Mahmoud means that…that dimensions are like ways of seeing something, right?”

Herrera shot him an encouraging grin. “Go on.”  

“Like, you could see something, like that huge bronze statue of that buffalo downtown, from above from a great height and see the top of its head or you could see it from the ground at zero height and see his hooves and mane and face, right? Height is one dimension. Then you have length and width, which is like viewing the statue from close or far away but still on the ground. Then there is time…” 

Here he paused again for a moment as Mr. Herrera gave him an encouraging look. “Yes?” 

Remy broke in. “Right. Like, if you were looking at the statute the day it was put there, it would be all shiny, but if you viewed it a hundred years later it would sort of be all dirty or black with oxidation or maybe totally gone because they took it down. Yeah. I don’t get the scale thing, though. How is that a dimension?” 

Mahmoud seemed to wake up. “Because scale makes sense. Think if we were a giant, bigger than the planet looking at the statue. It would be so small we wouldn’t notice it.” 

“Isn’t that just like height?” Remy began. 

“Let him finish, Remy.” Mr. Herrera said gently. 

Mahmoud seemed to have frozen again but then he shook himself and said “But then think if we were as small as an atom. We’d see the statue completely differently. We’d see it on the molecular scale, right? A scale we can’t see because to atoms humans are like giants.” 

Mrs. Herrera clapped his hands together, making Vilek start. She let out a long breath and wrung out his hands as though she’d been zapped with electricity, eliciting a few chuckles. 

“There,” said Herrera, seemingly mollified. “See? You took a stab at it. And you know what? You’ve landed on one much-discussed idea about the fifth dimension.” 

“Really?” Mahmoud asked. 

“Really. There are some who think scale might be the 5th dimension or at least a dimension. It’s up for debate and you,” she gestured to the class as a whole. “Engaged in that debate.” 

“Some of us did,” Vilek grumbled then froze at a look from Mrs. Herrera. 

“Now on to proofs.” 

Remy caught up with them in the hallway once Herrera steered them through half a dozen proofs about triangles and something he called ‘theta’ which Ben would have to ask Mahmoud about if Mahmoud didn’t ask him first. The hallway filled with noise and bodies all heading in different directions. The three of them squeezed closer together in the space just to the side of Herrera’s door.

“How did you know that?” Remy asked Mahmoud. 

Mahmoud stared at ceiling, narrowing his eyes more and more as time went on so that after a few seconds he looked as if he’d entered a sort of deep meditation. Ben waited. Usually, if you gave him enough time, Mahmoud would come out of it. 

“Ummmm…” Mahmoud said. 

A deep, mantra meditation, Ben amended. Remy leaned in as though she were trying to hear what might come next, her eyes searching Mahmoud’s face. 

“Mahmoud!” Ben hissed snapping his fingers in front of his face. 

The other boy’s eyes sprung open.. “I was just getting to it.” He said, scowling before he looked up at Remy, who was a good foot taller than he was. “Scale. Right. It was just a thought I had because Ben and I are reading this book, The Hallowed Halls of Hexitryl, and there’s this one scene where—” 

“No we’re not.” Ben objected. 

“Guys, we should get going,” Remy said, indicating the swarming hordes of students marching through the hall. 

Ben nodded. They joined the flow on the right side of the hallway, Remy and Mahmoud walking side by side and Ben behind them. 

Mahmoud looked back at him as though Ben had just claimed he was made of foam rubber. “Yes we are.” 

“We are what?” Ben asked. 

“Reading The Hallowed Halls of Hexitryl.” 

“No, we’re reading that Dragon of Midnight Thunder. At least I am,” Remy put in.

“Dude,” Ben said, digging through his bag and he walked and finally snagging the Dragons of Midnight Thunder. “We’re reading this, right?” 

“You guys,” Mahmoud groaned and threw up his hands. “We went through this. We’re saving Dragons for when we can read the whole trilogy, like winter break. Hallowed Halls is a one-off.” 

“Yeah, which is why we decided not to read it.” Remy said. “Because anytime we read something that doesn’t have a sequel we get disappointed there’s nothing else to read as a follow up.” 

“Right. See Mahmoud?” 

“I’ve actually read them both.” Remy put it. She rubbed her chin. “Hallowed Halls is better world building, which is a pretty big accomplishment because it’s only one book, but Dragons series has better characters. Especially Umenthoth. I’m reading Dragons again though because we agreed to it together.” 

She gave Mahmoud a meaningful look. They stopped at the door to Spanish where Remy had her next class and looked at her. Then Ben said, “Right? Seriously. A total badass. Like when she—” 

“Cuts off the glimmer serpent’s head?” Remy put in, nodding. 

“I was going to say single-handedly solves the Riddle of Unheeded Commands, but yeah, the glimmer serpent thing was cool, too.” 

Remy smiled, pushing back her curls. 

“Oh my god, you guys!” Mahmoud was holding his hands over his ears. “Spoilers!” 

“Right. Crap.” Remy said. 

“My bad,” Ben cut in. “Sorry Mahmoud.” 

“Still,” Remy went on. “How did you get scale for the 5th dimension out of Hallowed Halls?” 

“Really? You don’t remember the fizz machine?” Mahmoud seemed more comfortable now that he was on familiar territory. 

“Oh wait. Right. The thing that molecularizes whatever it aims at? That makes sense.” 

“Still,” Ben said thoughtfully. “Where did you learn about the 4th dimension and time?” 

Remy gestured as though swatting a fly out of the air. “That? That’s just Physical Science from last semester. Were you napping that day?” 

Ben frowned. “Probably. But that’s only because this guy most likely kept me up all night reading something about a castle thief, which, I admit, was pretty good.” 

“It is good.” Mahmoud sniffed. “That swamp scene reminded me of the Preserve.” 

“It was like that. I feel like stuff like that could happen all the time in the Preserve and we just don’t know it.” Ben said before he could stop himself. 

Mahmoud gave him a skeptical look. “Like ghosts and zombies and teleportation?” 

“What? No. I just meant it can be a creepy place.” 

Remy shrugged. “Or maybe. I’ve seen a few things in there I can’t explain.” 

“Like what?” Mahmoud asked. 

Remy stretched her back, as if choosing her words. “Like a sort of mirror thing that was there one minute and then somewhere else and when I threw a rock at it, the rock never hit the ground.” She looked at each of them. “Go ahead. Call me a liar.” 

“Liar,” Mahmoud said.  

Ben blinked. She was talking about the very thing he’d seen just last night. If she’d seen it, then something was happening in the Preserve. Something real. He’d barely had time to think about it with Brianna and the clothes thing and his dad and school, but now Remy was saying what he’d seen was real. 

Not that he hadn’t thought it was. It was just…he hadn’t known what he’d seen and since it seemed so impossible he’d just put it in another part of his mind, the part where he put things he didn’t know how to deal with, the part where he put his mom and her death and dad and the way he was and Brianna and how to make sure she was okay all the time. He thought about these things, but they were so complicated, so heavy, he shoved them into a corner. Now he’d done that with whatever he’d seen in the Preserve. Put it in a little box in the corner by itself until he had time or space or information to think about it. Like now. 

“I’ve seen that, too,” he said before Remy could retort and start a debate with Mahmoud that might last for several days. 

“A mirror?” 

Ben swallowed. It sounded stupid in his mind, but what other way was there to describe it? “More like a bit of glass. I could only see it from one angle and when I put my arm out, it swallowed it.” 

“Looks pretty intact to me,” Mahmoud said dryly, eyeing Ben’s arm. 

“I’m saying that my arm disappeared and reappeared when I pulled it out,” he said glaring at Mahmoud who was rolling his eyes in exaggerated disbelief. “Seriously, man. It did happen.” 

He couldn’t blame Mahmoud for his skepticism. What would he himself say if Mahmoud told him the same? Probably ask whether he’d been to the head doctor lately. 

“Sounds pretty much like what I’m talking about. Except I couldn’t find it after the rock disappeared.” 

Ben nodded. “That makes sense. Your rock just fell in and never came out.” 

“Because the mirror-glass-ghost thing swallowed it?” Mahmoud suggested pretending to take a bite out of something in the air and gulping it down. He topped it off by rubbing his stomach. 

“Something like that.” Ben said, smiling in spite of himself. 

Mahmoud was a goofball sometimes, but he was right. It sounded ridiculous. But if Remy had seen it then there was maybe something there. 

“We should check it out,” Ben said. 

“Totally,” Remy said. 

“No, we should get to class and you two should—I don’t even know—seek professional help.”