Or maybe he just seemed serious, because he kept his feelings to himself until he had sorted them out, or until they had built up to a point where he couldn't contain them. So DeAnne knew that it was a real worry for him when he came into the kitchen and stood there silently for a long time until she said, "Want to tell me something or am I just too pretty for words?" which was what she always said, only he didn't smile, he just stood there a moment more and then he said, "Mom, can't I just stay home for another couple of days?"

"Stevie, I know it's scary, but you just need to plunge right in. You'll make friends right away and everything'll be fine."

"I didn't make friends right away at my old school."

That was true enough-DeAnne remembered the consultations with Stevie's kindergarten teacher. Stevie didn't really play with anybody until November of that year, and he didn't have any actual friends until first grade. If it weren't for his friends at church, DeAnne would have worried that Stevie was too socially immature for school. But with the kids at church he was almost wild sometimes, running around the meeting- house like a movie-western Indian until Step intervened and gathered him up and brought him to the car. No, Stevie knew how to play, and he knew ho w to make friends. He just didn't make friends easily. He wasn't like Robbie, who would walk up and talk to anybody, kid or adult. Of course Stevie was worried about school. DeAnne was worried for him, too.

"But that was your first school ever," she said. "You know the routine now."

"When Barry Wimmer moved in after Thanksgiving," he said, "everybody was really rotten to him."

"Were you?"

"No."

"So not everybody"