Chapter 1. The Hall
That was the day Jake Smith first understood that silence could be louder than shouting.
It stood in the room at the nursing home, where the air smelled of lemon floor cleaner, old paper, and something sweet, as if someone had hidden a box of caramels in a cupboard and forgotten it there for ten years. Outside the window, a thin rain was falling. It did not drum against the glass. It whispered, like fingers turning the pages of a very large book.
Jake sat on the edge of a plastic chair and tried not to look at the clock.
The clock hung above the door. Its second hand moved as if it were doing everyone a favor.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Each tick brought him closer to what came after the visit: the school project exhibition, the glass-walled hall full of parents and teachers and children who could speak as if they had been born holding microphones. His own table would be there too, with a cardboard model of a city on it and cue cards printed in large letters so he would not lose his place.
He would lose his place anyway.
He knew that as surely as he knew his own name, his locker number, and the fact that if he stayed quiet too long near his mother, she would ask, "Are you all right?" in the voice that made it impossible to answer honestly.
Mrs. Harper, his classmate's grandmother, slept in the bed by the window. The whole class had come to the nursing home as part of something called Good Fridays. Their teacher had said it would help them understand the importance of paying attention to older people.
Jake was not against paying attention.
He was against being paired with Trevor Mills.
Trevor Mills could turn any good deed into a competition, and someone else always seemed to lose.
Right now Trevor was in the corridor, showing a nurse something on his phone and laughing too loudly. Jake could hear the laugh through the door: even, confident, sharp as a stapler clicking shut.
"Are you hiding again, Smith?" Trevor called from the hall.
Jake pressed his palms against his knees.
He was not hiding. He had been asked to sit here while Mrs. Harper napped, because the old man from the room next door, Mr... what was his name... Mr. Alden, probably, wanted to talk to him. Miss Langley had smiled as if this were wonderful: an elderly gentleman choosing him for a conversation. Trevor had whispered, "Lucky. Maybe he'll leave you his teeth."
Jake had pretended not to hear.
That was his main skill.
Pretending.
The door opened without a knock.
An old man stood on the threshold in a gray dressing gown. He was thin, with a straight back and eyes that did not match his age at all. The skin around them had folded into fine lines, but the eyes themselves were clear and dark, as if someone polished them from the inside every morning. In one hand he held a cane. With the other he steadied the door, though he did not lean on it.
"Jacob Smith," he said.
Jake stood up so quickly the chair squeaked.
"I'm Jake."
"Of course," said the old man. "All Jacobs become Jakes first. It is more convenient for the world. Later, if they are lucky, they remember the full name."
Jake was not sure whether he was supposed to smile. To be safe, he smiled halfway.
The old man stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Mrs. Harper kept sleeping, her breathing gently moving the edge of the blanket.
"Mr. Alden?" Jake asked.
"That is what they call me here."
"Where don't they?"
The old man looked at him closely, and Jake immediately regretted the question. It had sounded rude, even though he had not meant to be rude. Words sometimes escaped before he had time to build them a safe exit.
"In other places," Mr. Alden said. "But we do not discuss that in rooms with clocks like this."
Jake looked at the clock again.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
"Why?"
"Because clocks like to report things."
A door banged somewhere in the corridor. Trevor laughed again.
Mr. Alden turned his head toward the sound.
"You are having a difficult day."
Jake shrugged. "It's normal."
"Normal is the word people use when they do not want to explain exactly how bad things are."
Jake felt his ears begin to burn. He sat down again, because standing in front of the old man made him feel as if he had been called to the principal's office.
"I have to present after this," he said. "My project."
"You are afraid of the presentation?"
"No."
Mr. Alden waited.
"Well... a little. Not the presentation. Just everyone being there. And if I forget what to say, Trevor will start whispering behind me. He can whisper so the whole room hears except the teacher."
The old man nodded, as if Jake had offered a serious technical description of a complicated mechanism.
"People like Trevor enjoy places where everyone is looking in the same direction," he said. "They think that if a crowd is watching a stage, no one will notice who is pushing the person beside them."
Jake smiled properly for the first time that morning.
"Do you know him?"
"I know his kind."
The old man went to the window. Beyond the glass the bus bay shone with rain. Headlights smeared across the wet asphalt, and the whole world looked slightly blurred, like a drawing someone had dragged a damp hand over.
