"Who says I can't?" he asked.

Wasting water was illegal. There were fines, and even prison sentences, for exceeding the quotas. But this boy looked like he didn't care about any of that.

"You just can't," I said.

"That's something a shaker would say."

"Because it's true."

"How do you know?"

"I know-that's all. Look around. Do you see any water here?"

"There's plenty of water," said the boy.

"Yeah, in the ocean."

"Can't drink salt water," he said, as if I didn't know.

I looked down the dusty road. Not a sign of life anywhere-just the hills, scarred from ancient fires, and sand blowing around the empty lot where I waited. Not even a lizard or an insect moved. Once there had been a row of stores at the edge of the lot, but now all that remained were the skeletons that scavengers hadn't sold for scrap. Torn insulation and loose wire dangled like innards from pitted aluminum struts. When the wind blew, they made a sound like mourning.

"Why don't you have your screen, anyway?" A new student should at least bring a notebook to his first day, I thought.

"I don't go to school."

"Are you a harvester?"

"My father says I don't have to go to school."

Everyone went to school, except for water harvesters' kids who chased the clouds across the sky. At least until you were eighteen-then you got jobs, or joined the army, or worked for the Water Authority Board, which was like staying in school for life.

"You're lucky," I said.

"School's not so bad."

I liked school, although I wouldn't admit it. I loved learning the details about shiny rocks, their hard, encrusted surfaces yielding clues about the minerals inside. I loved our field trips to the dams, where metal wheels as large as entire houses turned slowly in their silicon beds. Best of all, I loved deciphering the swirling purple patterns of thunderstorms and hurricanes, trying to predict where, on the brown-gray prairie, they would strike next.