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  Mr. Bailey regarded Clay over his desk. “I’ve heard teachers complain that you are developing an attitude problem, Clay. Is this what they’re talking about?”

  Clay shrugged, forcing himself not to look away. He didn’t think he had an attitude problem; he thought he had an honesty problem. The problem was, he didn’t know how not to be honest.

  Clay had exceptionally big eyes as well as wild, furry, half-curly hair. When he stared without blinking—a talent he had developed at a young age to irritate his older brother—the effect was quite startling. He looked like a forest animal.

  Discomfited, Mr. Bailey was the first to look down.

  “I think I have something that might help—”

  From under his desk, Mr. Bailey slid out a large cardboard box. Spilling out of the top was the velvet robe he had worn in The Tempest, and sticking out of the robe was the gnarled piece of wood that had served as his magic staff. For a second, Clay thought his teacher might give him the staff—either that or hit him over the head with it. But Mr. Bailey put the staff aside and started pulling out more props from the play.

  “Ah, here we are—”

  Smiling, Mr. Bailey handed Clay a smallish book covered with cracked rust-red leather. Inset in the center of the cover was a tiny triangular mirror.

  It took a moment for Clay to recognize what he was looking at. Prospero’s magic book. The book Prospero drowns at the end of The Tempest. Clay had never seen it up close before.

  “Thanks, but, um, are you sure you won’t need this?” asked Clay. “What if you do the play again?”

  Mr. Bailey waved his hand dismissively. “Once I’ve played a role, it’s done. The character becomes part of me.”

  Clay opened the book—or tried to. The pages of the book had dried together, and Clay had to pry them apart in order to look inside. Though old and worn, the pages were blank save for a few stains and some yellowing near the edges.

  Mr. Bailey told Clay he didn’t have to write about The Tempest. As long as he wrote something—anything—in the journal, he would get class credit.

  “Like what?” asked Clay, peering into the tiny mirror. His eye peered back at him. He had the odd sensation that he was spying on himself.

  “It doesn’t matter—I don’t even have to read it,” said Mr. Bailey.

  “But how can you not read it if you look at it?”

  Clay thought his logic was irrefutable, but Mr. Bailey just chuckled. “Believe me, I have a lot of practice ignoring things that students write.”

  He sat down and put his sandaled feet up on his desk, satisfied that the problem was solved.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time I played King Lear? Now that was a performance!…”

  As Mr. Bailey told him about the trials and tribulations of playing Shakespeare’s mad king, Clay kept trying to excuse himself.

  To no avail.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  THE WRITING ON THE WALL

  That afternoon, when he got home from school, Clay leaned his skateboard against the wall of his bedroom and sat down at his desk—which was actually a drafting table.

  For somebody with writer’s block, a casual observer might have noted, Clay sure wrote a lot. His desk, his skateboard, the wall his skateboard was leaning against, almost every surface in the room was covered with Clay’s writing.

  I say writing, but mostly it was his name written again and again. Or variations, like

  Sometimes his name appeared as a simple tag. Other times it was written in twisting three-dimensional letters. In the most elaborate versions, the letter Y was depicted as a fist squeezing clay.

  More than anything, Clay’s walls resembled a graffiti artist’s sketchbook. A talented graffiti artist’s sketchbook, I would add. (I’m told hands are notoriously difficult to draw.) But as I said, I may be biased.

  As to whether Clay had ever brought one of his graffiti pieces to life somewhere else—on a school wall, for example—the answer is no. At least, not yet.

  He pored over pictures of vintage graffiti art. He hunted for murals beneath freeway overpasses. And lately, at Gideon’s instigation, he and Gideon had started following around some older kids who had an active graffiti crew (not that the older kids ever tolerated them for very long). But whether it was due to moral qualms or fear of being caught or just his cautious not-quite-thirteen-year-old nature, Clay had yet to write on a single wall outside of his room.

  Of course, that doesn’t mean he didn’t plan to.

  Clay pulled the journal out of his backpack and took a pen out of his drawer, ready to write whatever nonsense came to mind.

  As soon as he uncapped the pen, it exploded, spraying ink in every direction. A big black splat landed on the red cover of the journal.

  “Aaargh!”

  The pen was a “magic” pen—a gag gift—given to him by his brother four years earlier.

  “Figures,” Clay grumbled.

  All the gifts his brother gave him exploded—whether they were supposed to or not.

  Shaking his head in annoyance, Clay threw the pen to the floor, then wiped off the journal with a tissue. A smeared, star-shaped stain remained.

  “Oh, great.”

  He grabbed a fat black marker off a shelf and opened the journal.

  MAGIC SUCKS!

  he wrote in swollen bubble letters.

  As he dotted the exclamation mark, Clay imagined that he saw a blue flame erupt—and for a flickering second he saw the page fill with words. He blinked, and the page went blank again.

  I must be getting tired, he thought, rubbing his eyes.

  He tagged the page quickly—

  CLAY

  —then closed the journal. There was nothing more to say.

  When Clay arrived at school the next morning, he still hadn’t decided whether he was going to show Mr. Bailey the journal. It might be wiser, Clay thought, to write something longer, without the word sucks in it.

  The last thing he expected was that the whole school would see his journal entry blown up on a wall.

  MAGIC SUCKS!

  CLAY

  The words on the wall were nearly identical to those he’d written the night before—the only difference being that they were bigger—much, much bigger. It looked as though somebody had scanned Clay’s journal, then run Mr. Bailey’s wall through a giant printer.

  Clay couldn’t understand it. Had somebody snuck into his room in the middle of the night, taken his journal out of his backpack, copied it onto Mr. Bailey’s wall, then returned the journal—all without waking Clay up? He couldn’t think of anybody who hated him enough to go to all that trouble.

  He felt weirdly exposed, as if it were a long confessional journal entry, not just two words, that had been copied onto the wall.

  When Mr. Bailey found him, the bell was ringing and Clay was still staring at the wall, repeatedly tapping his journal as though it might eventually reveal the explanation for the mystery mural. He snapped the journal shut, but he was too late.

  “Give that to me,” said Mr. Bailey, who suddenly looked a lot less like a hobbit and a lot more like an angry middle school teacher.

  Biting his lip, Clay handed him the journal. Mr. Bailey opened it to the offending page.

  “I’m very surprised, Clay,” said Mr. Bailey, glancing from the journal to the wall and back again. The effort to keep his fury in check was making his cheeks red and puffy. “Writing this in a journal is one thing, but on a wall…?”

  “I didn’t do it—”

  “Is there something you’re upset about? Something going on at home, maybe?”

  “I said I didn’t do it—”

  “It will be better for you in the long run if you admit it now,” said Mr. Bailey, his cheeks getting bigger and redder by the second. He was beginning to resemble a blowfish.

  “But I didn’t—”

  Mr. Bailey held up his hand. “Save it for the Head of School—”

  “Can I at least ha
ve the journal back?” said Clay. The journal was the one clue he had about the writing on the wall. The one thing that might help him clear his name.

  “Administration office, now!” Mr. Bailey exploded, spit flying everywhere.

  Clay walked away, his whole body quivering with anger and confusion. He was about to be suspended, possibly expelled, for something he hadn’t done and couldn’t explain.

  Before leaving the schoolyard, he took a last look at the graffiti. From a distance, the bubble letters appeared to wriggle, snakelike, in the sunlight. His words came in and out of focus, over and over, taunting him with their message.

  MAGIC SUCKS!…

  MAGIC SUCKS!…

  MAGIC SUCKS!…

  An effect, it seemed, of the tears welling in his eyes.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  A FAMILY MEETING

  Other families had Friday night dinner; Clay’s family had Friday night meetings.

  The meetings started promptly at six o’clock and proceeded according to a strict set of rules, with each family member choosing one topic, and one topic only, for the evening.

  When Clay was younger, the topics he chose most often were Spider-Man, the Hulk, and whatever magic trick his brother had most recently taught him.

  Lately, he had started keeping his personal enthusiasms to himself. For the family meetings he chose more practical topics, like how he needed a trip slip signed, or how he needed new sneakers, or how he hadn’t been to the dentist in over three years.

  The fact that he had to bring these things up at a meeting tells you most of what you need to know about his family. Outside of the meetings, I’m afraid to say, they didn’t get much family business done, or even spend much time together not getting done the business that they were not getting done.

  It hadn’t always been that way. Before Clay was born, things were very different. Or so Clay was made to understand by Max-Ernest. Max-Ernest, as you might surmise, was Clay’s older brother, and somebody I am intimately familiar with.*

  You see, their parents were convinced that they had been too controlling of Max-Ernest when Max-Ernest was little (true). They felt they had overworried, overscheduled, and generally overparented him (also true), and that as a result Max-Ernest was an overanxious person (I won’t judge).

  When their second son, Paul-Clay (as Clay was then called), was born, they decided to reverse course and take a more hands-off approach.

  Their new child, they declared, would parent himself.

  The freedom they gave Clay was great when it came to such things as choosing when to go to bed or how many desserts to have. It was not so great when it came to things like, say, trip slips, footwear, or dental care. While he was still living at home, Max-Ernest gave his younger brother as much attention as an overly cerebral extremely smart and self-absorbed very busy person like Max-Ernest was capable of giving. But there was only so much he could do, not being Clay’s legal guardian. The Friday night meetings were Max-Ernest’s idea. A way of ensuring that their family ship kept sailing.

  When Max-Ernest first left for college, he attended a school not very far away, and he always came home on Friday nights. Even after he transferred to a school much farther afield, he kept contributing to the family meetings via weekly postcards. The cards always contained a riddle for Clay to solve (“What travels the world but never leaves its corner? Hint: There’s one on this postcard.”) or an odd fact for Clay to uncover (“What is the smallest city in the smallest country in the world? Hint: They are one and the same.”). Clay didn’t always love his brother’s riddles and word games (they were usually too silly for Clay, or too difficult, or both); nonetheless, getting a postcard from his brother was the highlight of Clay’s week.

  Or had been, until the day, almost two years ago now, when that awful card came:

  Dear family,

  You will not hear from me for a while.

  Do not worry.

  Love, M-E

  Clay looked in vain for hidden clues and secret messages—for a “bad word” that would reveal the note’s true meaning—but he didn’t find any. As far as he could tell, the message was no more or less than it seemed: a good-bye. The picture on the card was of a rabbit sticking its head out of a top hat, and Clay assumed this meant that Max-Ernest intended to go on the road as a magician, but he had no way of knowing for certain.

  Not a single card from Max-Ernest had arrived since, not even on Clay’s twelfth birthday.

  Most parents, Clay knew, would have made more of an effort to find a missing son. But when he approached his parents about it, they pointed out that Max-Ernest was over eighteen and free to make his own choices.

  “Wouldn’t you want us to respect your choices?” said his mother. “We expect you to respect ours.”

  “There’s a saying, Clay,” said his father. “When you love someone, let them go.”

  Clay thought his parents were taking that saying too literally, but nothing he said would sway them. For a while, Clay tried to take up the search himself. Alas, Max-Ernest had a deep distrust of technology, and there was no way to contact him electronically that Clay knew of. He did have a physical address for his brother—in Barcelona—and he sent several letters, but they were returned unopened. Next, Clay tried contacting Max-Ernest’s friends. They’d all changed their e-mail addresses and phone numbers several times, but finally Clay was able to get a message to Max-Ernest’s old friend Cass. She replied through her mother that Clay shouldn’t worry, Max-Ernest was fine.

  That settled it for Clay. If his brother had cared enough, he would have contacted Clay by now. Obviously, their relationship was no longer very important, if it had ever been.

  It was around that time that Clay dropped the Paul in Paul-Clay and started calling himself simply Clay.* He also stopped being interested in magic and started getting interested in other things, like skateboarding and, more significant for our story, graffiti.

  Tonight, as always, Clay had printed a copy of the meeting agenda. It sat on the dinner table in front of him, next to a notebook computer and the frozen pizza he had heated up for himself. At his feet was his skateboard, which he idly kicked back and forth.

  FRIDAY NIGHT MEETING

  1. Clay’s act of vandalism—causes (Mom)

  2. Clay’s act of vandalism—consequences (Dad)

  3. Clay’s alleged act of vandalism—who really did it? (Clay)

  As soon as his father sat down, Clay hit the table with his spoon. It was his turn to chair the family meeting, which in this case was rather like officiating at his own funeral.

  “This meeting is now called to order,” he said by rote. He looked at the notebook computer propped up on the table next to him. “Mom?”

  “Thank you, Clay,” said his mother on the computer screen. “First, I want you to know we understand what you’ve done. The impulse to write on walls is as old as mankind.”

  Clay’s father nodded. “It’s a way of saying, See, world, I am here! For a boy entering adolescence, this kind of self-expression is very powerful.”

  “And beautiful. Just think of those wonderful cave paintings at Lascaux!” Clay’s mother smiled at her husband. “You remember?”

  “How could I forget?” He beamed at the computer, then turned to Clay. “As for graffiti, the word is Italian. First used to describe inscriptions found in the ruins of Pompeii. Another great place to visit!” he added, turning back to his wife. “What is it about volcanoes…?”

  Clay’s mother blushed on-screen. “Not now, honey!”

  Although technically they lived together, Clay’s parents could never be in each other’s presence for very long without fighting. Thus, they took turns attending the family meeting in person, with one or the other always attending in pixelated form. While this arrangement kept things civil, it had its downside. For reasons Clay could never discern, physical separation always seemed to inspire romantic feelings in his parents.

  “Um, guys, can I say
something?” asked Clay.

  “Of course; you know you can say anything to us,” said his father.

  “That’s why we’re here,” said his mother (although strictly speaking, they weren’t in the same place).

  “I tried to tell you guys when I called from school. The graffiti, I—I didn’t write it,” Clay stammered. “Well, I wrote it—just not on that wall.”

  Clay did his best to explain, but his parents, perhaps understandably, were very skeptical.

  “Clay, you know we aren’t here to judge, right?” said his father. “That’s not what this is about.”

  “All we ask is for your honesty,” said his mother.

  “But I am being honest! I wouldn’t do that—it’s whacked.”

  Clay’s knee jiggled wildly under the table, sending his skateboard this way and that.

  “It’s very disappointing that you don’t feel you can confide in us,” said his father.

  “Are you afraid we will withhold love from you if you tell us the truth?” asked his mother.

  Clay felt his face reddening. His parents were psychologists, and he hated it when they analyzed his emotions.

  “Maybe you’d like to talk about this with another therapist, someone who isn’t one of your parents,” suggested his father.

  “What’s the point of talking at all if you’re not going to believe me!”

  Clay’s parents looked at him askance. He had spoken rather loudly.

  “Never mind. Just forget it,” said Clay through gritted teeth. “It doesn’t matter whether I did it anyway.”

  He took a bite of pizza and chewed furiously.

  “What matters, then?” demanded his father.

  “That the school thinks I did. And now you have to figure out a punishment.”

  “Let’s not use the word punishment,” said Clay’s father. “Let’s use the word consequence.”