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“Who the heck is that?”
He seems to grow nervous, scratching the back of his neck. “No one you want to know.”
“Oh.” I pause. “Do you know why I’m here?”
He swallows hard, not answering me. It grows quiet again, and that sad look returns to his face.
Honestly, the only time he didn’t look sad was when he was talking about his pet raven.
“Um … What’s your raven’s name?” I ask, hoping he’ll relax again and maybe tell me why the heck I’m at this house.
He lifts a shoulder. “I haven’t named it.”
“Well, you should,” I say. “Every pet needs a name.”
“Giving names to things make us weak,” he mutters automatically.
“No way,” I disagree, stepping toward him. “Naming things is really fun, especially pets, because you can name them just about anything. Like this one time I named this stray cat Cat. Although, he wasn’t really my pet. He just wandered into my backyard sometimes.”
“You named a cat Cat?” he questions.
I shrug, smiling a bit. “I thought it was funny.”
“And you like to be funny?” He seems confused by this.
I shrug again. “I like to be a lot of things, but yeah, I like being funny sometimes … Why do you seem so confused about that?”
He lifts a shoulder, staring at me like he’s completely mystified. “It’s just that you … I don’t know … You seem … happy?”
“And that’s confusing?”
He shrugs again.
The boy really likes to shrug.
“Well, I am happy sometimes,” I inform him. “Just like I’m sad sometimes. And angry. And scared. That’s totally normal.”
A crinkle forms between his brows. “Not in my world.” Then he sighs loudly. “Look, I can’t name my raven anything or else my dad will get mad at me.”
“Really?” I ask, and he nods. “Your dad’s really strict then.”
“Yeah, he is,” he agrees in a hollow tone.
I get the feeling his dad is a really mean guy. No wonder he looks so sad all the time.
I find myself wanting to make him happy, like I am sometimes.
An idea comes to me then. A pretty awesome one, too.
“Well, maybe you can give it a name without him knowing,” I suggest. “Like how I named my cat Cat.”
He gives me a funny look. “You think I should name my raven Raven?” he questions. “Like, after you?”
I give an innocent shrug, pretending like that just occurred to me. “Well, you really don’t have to name it after me. It could just be a weird coincidence that we have the same name.”
He sinks into silence again, giving me a suspicious look. But then the look fades. “I’ll think about it.”
I nod, smiling to myself. For a crazy second, he looks as if he’s smiling, too. But the look swiftly erases and fills with panic as an intercom inside the room clicks on.
