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don’t want to keep Mrs. Carelli waiting. Are you sure you want to do this?”
    â€œAbsolutely,” he said. “Absolutely.”

    I’d hadn’t told my mother about the Roach, so that evening when we were chopping vegetables for a stir-fry, I decided I’d better come clean.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me before?” she said. “This is the same guy, isn’t it? The one who did all those awful things in public school?”
    I nodded. Ronny Roach has been making me upchuck my lunch since grade three. That was the year of the little pink plush jewelbox coffins. The dead mice inside had not died natural deaths, and they hadn’t been killed in mouse-traps either. There was too much dried blood for that. One had its throat sliced straight across. The other was missing all four tiny feet.
    Ronny didn’t improve with age. In grade five someone caught him torturing a cat. In grade six he set fire to a Sri Lankan girl’s braid with a cigarette lighter. After that he was away for a while, locked upsomewhere. When he came back for grade eight we were in the same class. That’s when I became his sworn enemy for life.
    It happened when I was waiting for my father to pick me up for what turned out to be one of our last every-second-weekend visits. I was sitting on the school steps, feeling really awful about my parents’ latest fight, when Natalie, a girl with waist-length black hair, came out the main door. Ronny Roach was just behind her.
    When they reached the sidewalk, a whole lot of things happened at the same time. Dad’s car pulled up at the curb. Ronny’s hands, holding a long thin pair of scissors that glittered in the late afternoon sun, darted towards the back of Natalie’s neck and started to hack off her hair somewhere around her ears. I jumped up and screamed blue murder.
    Natalie comes from India and because of her religion her hair had never been cut in her whole life, so it wasn’t just a beauty-destroying thing Ronny did, which would have been terrible enough, but something much, much worse.
    Ronny flung the scissors to the ground and took off down the street. My father called the police on his car phone. I picked up the big hunk of hair from the sidewalk and handed it back to Natalie, who was sobbing hysterically and trying to cover the shorn part of her head with her hands.
    Neither Natalie nor Dad could identify Ronny by name, but I could, and I did. So when he got sent to the Juvenile Detention Centre for the second time, he blamed me.
    â€œYou’d better be careful, Jess,” Mom said. “He’s trouble.”
    Raffi looked serious. “Maybe I’ll have a little talk with him,” he said. “What do you think Lynda? Jess? Should I do that?”
    â€œGo for it,” Mom said. “Just don’t threaten him. Threatening is a crime.”
    Raffi bent his arm up, caressed his biceps and raised his eyebrows. “Who me?” he said. “You think I’d threaten somebody? Jess, you didn’t answer. Should I, er, have a little chat with this guy?”
    â€œI guess,” I said. “It can’t hurt. Is it OK if Jon comes over Saturday afternoon for a while?”
    Raffi dropped a huge handful of noodles into a pot of boiling water. “Jon who?” he said.
    â€œJon Bell,” I said. “My friend.” I emphasized the word
friend
.
    Mom raised her eyebrows in a way I loathe, but I guess I asked for it. “F-r-i-e-n-d,” I said.
    â€œOh,” she said. “Sure.”
    I could feel the blush creeping up my neck. When the phone rang she wiped her hands on her jeans, and answered. “For you,” she said and handed me the phone. “It’s Sheena.”
    â€œHi,” I said. “I was going to call you.”
    â€œWhat’s up, duckie? You talk to the Orellana kids yet?”
    â€œWell, I tried. But I didn’t get an answer. And what with the break-in