The Good Boy by Theresa Schwegel

and forth and crying and doing this weird hiccupping thing. Joel’s mom was watching and when Dr. Drake asked if she’d join them in the office she wasn’t listening, because she said, “Thank you,” and took Joel’s hand and led him out the way they came in.
    On that train ride home, she was the one staring out the window, and when Joel asked if she was okay she wasn’t listening again because she said, “You’ll be okay.” That was the last time anybody mentioned the specialist. Until today.
    In the family room, someone turns on the TV and a lady says, “We’re talking about reasonable doubt, sir.”
    Sir says, “ Your emphasis is on doubt. I’m trying to put it on reasonable.”
    Joel recognizes the voices from one of the courtroom shows his mom watches while she also reads nonfiction books she says are “depressing.” He hears the rustle of his dad’s paper again, too—the Tribune —which he says is “goddamn depressing.”
    “We’re done talking?” his dad asks.
    “Is that what we were doing?” his mom asks.
    The hurt and hurting Joel hears in their voices make the actors sound thick and silly. And they make Joel feel terrible, because this is his fault. He has made his parents this way. Not because he has headaches, but because he causes them.
    He starts to get out from behind the oleander—he’ll sneak back to his room and bury Felis Catus in his memory, deep as he can—when his mom mutes the TV. He knows it’s his mom because she always mutes the TV when she decides to say something and she wants everybody to listen. And what she says is: “Are you going to let McKenna talk all night?”
    “You want her off the phone, you go tell her.”
    “I don’t know this boy. Zack Fowler.”
    Joel stays where he is; maybe his parents will be able to put things back in order on their own.
    “For fuck’s sake.”
    Or not.
    “Give her some rope, will you?” his dad says. “She’s a smart kid. She knows her limits. Anyway why are you worried about her? She’s not the one you think I’ve damaged. ”
    “Do you hear yourself?” His mom’s voice is steely now; the wine does that, too. “Joel is suspended. I mean, seriously.”
    “Do you ever mean it any other way?”
    His mom’s answer is to turn the sound on again.
    Seriously is right, though: Joel didn’t know they suspended him. But this story, he can tell, and he’ll say Bob Schnapper asked for it today.
    And if he has to tell it, he’ll admit he should have seen it coming. Last week in social studies, they started a lesson on ancient civilizations, and Mrs. Hinkle asked the class to split into teams. Nobody picked Joel and nobody picked Bob, either, so she stuck them both in Rome. From there, they had to choose solo projects. Joel got dibs on the clay map; Bob got stuck writing a speech about the republic.
    Joel worked on the map all week and had just finished shaping Corsica when Mrs. Hinkle asked him to help Kristy Munson, the girl who picked daily Roman life, with her toga. She has big front teeth that are really cute.
    So, while Joel scissored the fitted corners off a bedsheet, Kristy started telling him about how the common people collected urine to clean the royalty’s clothing. The reason, she said, was something called ammonia. Joel didn’t believe it so he went to look up ammonia in the dictionary, which is why he didn’t notice when Bob Schnapper got fed up with the Senate, made like Caesar, and destroyed his map.
    Joel wanted to punch Bob in the face but he’s half Bob’s size and couldn’t reach that high so instead he called Bob a name or two and went over and took Rome back. Bob just sat there rolling a wad of clay into a coil, the snake.
    While Joel sat there looking over the devastation—Gaul flattened, Carthage sacked—Kristy Munson stepped up next to his desk in her toga and said, “You must be pissed,” which is what gave Joel the idea.
    After social studies, he followed Bob to the locker room. He waited