Oliver In the cafeteria, Corky and I each sit on opposite ends of a round table that looks like a rich

cedar but is actually particle board with a sticker on top. She has a baby carrot stuffed up her nose and gold Elvis imitation sunglasses. I have most of a bologna and mayonnaise sandwich on bleached bread in my hands and the rest stuffed in my mouth. Corky and I have a lengthy discussion about the purpose of sperm whales. The other round table in the corner, full of girls with choppy black hair and gawky red-headed boys with mashed-up teeth and studded belts, whisper behind flattened palms and stab their eyeliner-wrought eyes at me while I am explaining to Corky in our made-up sign language that the purpose of a sperm whale is merely to exist and spur such conversations as these. For the word whale, I hook my thumbs and push my forearms together and flap my fingers. For sperm, I wriggle the extended middle finger of one fist. That table, they are all looking at me silly, so I wave. The way I feel is naked. Those guys, now theyre shoving orange slices peel-out into their fat, dripping mouths, crossing their eyes and laughing in my direction. I start to laugh too which makes them laugh so hard that snot shoots from one boys nose. I hear a snort from Corky and when I turn around to face her, she has a whole striped watermelon shoved between her gums. Where did she find a watermelon? How did she get it to fit inside her mouth? Her eyes are watering, her head so full, cheeks bulging six inches beyond her ears on either side. Danny, a roundish boy with a flat face, starts belting a song called I Like My T-Shirt, and the only line he sings is the one consisting of the title. He wears a red Hawaiian-flowered shirt which he picks at as he wobbles back and forth, popping and un-popping the collar periodically. I stand up to throw away my trash and am halted by a teacher in a long skirt, looming largely over me. I look up. You didnt ask to be excused, Oliver. With one hand holding a crumpled, crummy Ziploc bag, the other slaps my thigh in exasperation. I sigh. I show her the used plastic. She sighs. Teacher steps out of the way and tells Danny to shush, hes being disruptive. He moodily complies, now whispering the song: I like my t-shirt, I like my t-shirt!

Oliver I am in such a good mood that I feel exactly how a baby raptor must feel when it is clawing its way out of an egg. Crraaawww-uhhh. I put on a scribbled-looking face and thrash my arms around at my chest. Crraaawww-uhhh. I craw-uh my way into class and sit near Shaun Fisch, who is one of the more popular boys, and he gives me a high-five. Ahh-lee-vur, he annunciates, showing me a V-shaped peace sign, except his thumb is sticking out from the side like a German number three. Corky hums Heart from across the room. She sings Sister Hazel. Chortles Chumbawamba. Mr. Teacher doesnt seem to mind all of her noise. Corky hums and haws but nobody cares because she has the voice of an angel. Shaun, he cant wait for show-and-tell. He motions for me to scoot closer and lifts up his shirt, revealing an angry bruise on his side with a fat tick attached to the center. I havent shown my dad yet, he confides, because I wanted to show everyone today. He lets go of the edge of his shirt, letting it fall loosely back into place. Neat, huh? Hes like. I nod, trying to keep my lips from curling. Three small children, two in dresses and one brown boy in coveralls and a grown-up lady with blonde hair and a frowning smile all stand scattered invisibly about the room. One of the little girls stands next to Cindy Lou, who knows the child is there but tries to ignore her presence by holding her hand up to the side of her face like a horse with blinkers, frustrated wells in her eyes. The second girl is across the room by Amelia Bloom, who smiles during her exam while the small girl fondles her hair. The coveralled boy sits Indian-style in the corner by the whiteboard, looking terribly sad and forlorn, growing more and more transparent by the second and gathering particles of dust that dull his warm-colored skin. Teacher is upright by the board, droning and pointing the way that teachers do, completely unaware of the poor, isolated Indian boy, having forgotten his existence entirely. Sometimes, Teachers gaze will be snagged at the corner for just the briefest moment, and the

little Indian boy will glow, but then Teachers eyes will go back to their regular sweeping motion and the boy grows dimmer and dimmer. These people, these imaginary friends, are real. Thought into existence by honest children. Ghosts, theyre called. Ghosts clinging to those who can see them in hopes of fulfilling their lifelong purpose so that they can move on in death. Nirvana, some people call it. Heaven, some others. Or nothingness. Soon the boy will become so forgotten, so dusty and thin and translucent, that he will wholly disappear; be swallowed up by the universe, consumed by the air around him, and then spat back out as the regurgitation of another newborn human being to try out living once again. The blonde-haired woman hangs from the air ducts on the ceiling as if they were monkey bars, her hair falling down over her face, her skirt bunching up by her hips, looking down at a freckled boy in the corner, Gray. Gray looks straight ahead, absently fingering his pen and feeling the womans upside-down stare hard on the top of his skull. And Corky, my dear, still sits across the room and sings her heart out for no one to hear but me. I pick up my pencil. I start my exam. A, C, C, B, C, A, D, A, A, A, C, D, B, A, B. The graphite scratches. The ghost on the ceiling blinks but makes no sound. No whisper of eyelash to eyelash. No audible, smoky breath. Scratch, scratch, scratch. B, A, C, B, D. The test is easy-peasy, a cinch. Corky looks at me and smiles and I smile back and people think that I am smiling to myself. Poof. The finished test sits at the corner of my desk and my finished hands sit folded in my lap. Amelia rolls her head back at her imaginary friends cold touch. Teachers gaze again catches at the corner but the Indian boys head only drops to his knees, having lost all hope of being remembered by his old friend as he fades, fades, fades away.

Oliver When I first met Corky, I was walking through the bus circle at school. Lunch just ended and science class started in six minutes and the wind was whistling through the trees out front. In the very middle of the bus circle I looked up at the sky, mottled with orange clouds and a flock of brown birds, and felt something land softly on my head. I stomped my feet and threw my books on the asphalt, spitting and reaching up to dig bird crud out of my hair, but felt nothing. My eyes stared curiously at my fidgeting shoes while my fingers wrestled on top of my skull, and when I finally looked back up, there was a girls face in the clouds; her mouth and eyes three holes in the billows, giving way to sunlight shining through and when I followed the three rays of sunbeams they led my eyes right to the ground in front of me where a girl in a thin white dress lay sprawled. It wasnt so thin that her personal parts were visiblenot that I would know what to look for, anywaybut just thin enough to see the rosiness of her skin and the gray tarmac beneath her body. I look around, but all of the other students dont even care. They just walk right by while yapping back and forth to each other without so much as a second glance our way. She stirs, her hand rising to bless her forehead. She moans. I trip over the bottoms of my pant legs trying to scramble to her aid, kneeling by her head so she will see me when she first opens her eyes, like a newborn goose seeing its mother for the very first time. Someone on the stairs yells out: You drop something, Lame-O? And then laughs, shaking his head and walking away. I dont understand. Dont they care about her at all? She opens her eyes, and they are gray. Are you okay? I ask. I want to touch her cheek the way that mothers always do, but am afraid that she will become offended. I am not her mother after all, which is good because that would be terribly awkward to explain. She bats her eyelids. Dont speak, she chimes, and my mouth buttons closed while its needle and thread slide dully down my throat. She sits up and tells me: talking distracts you from what really matters. I crouch and watch her rub her eyes, dust off her dress, and fold her hair behind her ear. I stand and extend an arm to help her up. She accepts and her hands are fuh-reezing and upon getting on her feet she wobbles a little bit. She looks down at her arms, legs, and twists around to view her backside. She looks at me.

I am not this young, she says, and then goes back to grooming. No response shoots from my buttoned mouth. Whatever its meaning, this cryptic message came from her lips and that is just fine. I dont feel the need to argue. When she is not looking, I crane my neck to see if there are any rude bumps on her head from whatever fall she must have taken. I rub my palms against my pant legs to knock the terrible chill off of them.

Corky I started out floating above the trees as a speck of dust. I was picked up from the ground by a handsy piece of wind with a zillion other specks, all dirty brown and soaring like a sandy flock of geese, drifting in the breeze with the essence of a candy-striped hot air balloon. Sandwiched between animal and shipwreck-shaped clouds and soil, looking down at the spectacle of people below, is when I began to first assess my existence Who am I? What am I? Why am I here? as I fall, fall, fall down and upwards and sideways in this atmosphere that has no direction, no meaning; a dimensionless vortex of air and misplaced landscapes. Is the patchwork ground above or below? Is it to the left? Does it exist at all? I plummet to the ground which turns out to be downwards and right before hurtling into a gum-ridden concrete, a merciful breeze catches me and, ever so gently, releases me into the cushioning tuft of a boys of brown hair.