With the graham cracker box and two cans of pears, he built a little fortress around his homework paper. He glanced once toward the living room, where Grandma had the TV turned up loud. If he leaned forward a little, he could see her on the couch, slumped over. This time, he wasn’t scared that she was dead. In fact, he was glad she was sleeping. That meant she wouldn’t see what he was working on. The reason Robin was crying was because he was homesick. And kids teased him about his name and called him a crybaby. And he’d never gone to school before, just had his mom teach him. And he didn’t know how to make friends. And . . . What was he supposed to write next? “And so I hit him”? Dexter crumpled the paper and hid it behind the graham cracker box. He got out another sheet of paper. He smoothed it down flat and started over. Robin had lots of reasons for crying. None of them had anything to do with me. It wasn’t my fault he was crying. I had lots of reasons for being mad, too.
