The middle school in this neighborhood is underfunded and overcrowded. Half of his teachers don't even notice they have a new student, too busy trying to control the daily chaos. Peter spends his first half day bouncing off of other students' shoulders in the hallway, keeping his head down to avoid stares and jeers and not realizing why he's getting them until he ducks into the bathroom before seventh period and sees his face in the graffiti-covered mirror. It's deathly-pale, and his cheeks are streaked with tears he didn't know were happening.
Uncle Ben is dead.
It's my fault.
Peter wipes his face and heads back into the halls, which are crowded with strangers.
About a week after he goes to live with the cousins, they get a visit from Peter's social worker.
When she arrives, Peter feels a little flare of hope—the first identifiable emotion he's had since that night outside the alley. Surely she'll see that his bed is at least fifty years old, and that the clunk of the pipes over it keeps him up all night. Surely she'll notice that the cupboards are nearly bare but the liquor cabinet is fully stocked, that the meals the cousins do give him are all TV dinners, that the whole duplex smells like cat litter. She'll see and she'll send him somewhere better, a proper foster family.
But the social worker doesn't say anything as she totters around the apartment. She's middle-aged and has a slight limp, and somehow she looks more exhausted than Peter feels. When she examines his corner of the basement she merely nods and ticks something off on her clipboard. Peter thinks she will say something about the fridge, but when she opens it, someone has filled it with food—and she nods again.
"Well, Peter," she says when she's finished, already pulling her jacket on as she heads for the front door, "your cousins have agreed to sign a temporary guardianship agreement, so it looks like you can stay here for a while. I'll get everything drawn up. Do you need anything before I leave?"
She looks from Peter to the cousins, who are standing on either side of him like squat caricatures of the royal guard, with an expression on her face just short of pleading.
"I think we're just fine," says Mr. Arlington, squeezing Peter's shoulder.
The social worker sags with relief and beats a hasty retreat, before any of them can change their minds.
(Are you happy, Peter?)
No one is coming to save him.
The kids at Peter's new school hate him. Within a few weeks he's established himself as a know-it-all, totally accidentally. But the classes here are all a few grade levels behind what he's used to—Peter wouldn't be able to fail them if he tried.
He doesn't want to try. Schoolwork is the only distraction he has, because the cousins don't have a computer, or even any books, and Peter finds that when he isn't distracted his mind starts to hum like it did that first night, that white space taking on a sharp edge that is too untenable for him to examine.
He gets shoved in the hallway between classes. A girl a foot taller than him smacks his lunch out of his hands every day if he doesn't get to a table and scarf it down fast enough. A boy who must have been held back at least three times—judging from his beard—full-on punches him in the face while they wait for the bus one afternoon. Doesn't even offer an explanation. Just breaks Peter's glasses, and possibly his nose, and gets on the bus.
Despite all this, school becomes Peter's refuge.
The cousins' duplex—he can't stomach the thought of calling it home—is the worst place Peter has ever been. Never mind that he barely sleeps, or that he goes to his creaky, awful bed with an empty stomach every night, or that the cat smell is starting to seep into his clothes, making him even more of a target at school. It's the tension that makes it unbearable.
Mr. Arlington seems to have some sort of job, because he's usually not there when Peter gets home from school. Mrs. Arlington, on the other hand, does nothing but sit on the couch all day watching soap operas, taking breaks only to shuffle into the kitchen to make another screwdriver, which is her drink of choice.
Once, Peter tried to sit on the couch to do his homework, the light in the basement being too dim, and upon finding him there she smacked him across the back of the head with a rolled-up Cosmo.
"You're blocking the TV," she slurred, and it took all of Peter's self-control not to run as he headed back to the relative safety of his underground bedroom.
In spite of Peter's immediate retreat, Mrs. Arlington seems to get a taste for hitting him after that.
She takes to carrying a magazine around with her wherever she goes. If she catches Peter in the kitchen—smack. If he forgets to take his shoes off at the door—smack. If he misses one of his chores (laundry, cat litter, scrub the toilet, sweep the floors, wipe the dust off the television)—smack .
It never leaves a mark. It does leave Peter with an achy nervousness that never goes away when he's in the apartment, because he's always waiting for the next blow to fall.
When Mr. Arlington gets home in the evenings, he and Mrs. Arlington scream at each other for a while before they go to bed. Peter is usually in the basement at this point, but it always makes the ache worse, makes it that much harder to fall asleep while he stares at the trails of dust moving across the ceiling.
(Are you happy, Peter?)
No, Peter thinks. Then, But that's my own fault, isn't it?
"Psst."
Peter is walking back to the Arlington's from school. He doesn't take the bus anymore, partly because of the bearded boy, but mostly because it gets him there too quickly.
He glances over his shoulder, thinking a bee might be following him. Nothing. He resumes walking.
"Pssst."
Peter turns around.
This time, Ned Leeds' round face materializes from behind a dumpster.
"Ned?"
"Shh!"
Peter blinks a few times, thinking he's crazy, but it's definitely Ned: he's wearing his Midtown Middle School gym t-shirt and carrying the lunch box Peter got him for Christmas last year, which has a picture of the Hulk—Ned's favorite superhero—and says "Hulk Smash Lunch!" in bright green letters.
Peter stares.
"What are you doing here?" he says blankly.