His alarm clock went off an hour earlier than he usually set it for. Zach got up at six forty-five on school days, but he'd set the alarm for five forty-five. Groaning, he rolled over and pressed the snooze, but the guilt he felt in wasting time made it impossible for him to go back to sleep. He had to get up. He really did want to, or at least, that's what he'd thought last night, before going to bed. Now that the alarm was actually telling him to get up, he was thinking some craziness had possessed him to set the clock so early.

But no . . . he did want to get up. He wanted that extra time.

It was because he'd started to draw in the mornings. He'd begun it on Saturday, because he'd awoken angry and annoyed at having done nothing the night before and didn't know what to do with himself. If his parents had been home, maybe they'd have made him do something, but they weren't there, and he hadn't been able to think of anything to do except sit down and begin working on that idea he'd had for his art class. Because Friday had been a day four, which meant he skipped fourth period, and he hadn't had class. So he hadn't been able to start working on his idea. He'd sat at his desk Saturday morning, turned up his music loud, scrounged up some piece of paper and some black drawing utensils, and begun drawing.

His first picture sucked. He threw it aside. His second rendition sucked too, as did the third, fourth, and the half of the fifth that he got through. None of them were right. None would fit the image he had in his head. Zach knew he really wasn't any sort of artist; he couldn't come up with something to be too proud of. But this picture was stuck in his brain, and if he was going to make it, it had to be right. It was a sort of obsession. His dreams for the past few nights had been filled with this image that had surfaced at the end of his gym class on Thursday. Even awake, he couldn't seem to shake it from his mind. Somehow, he knew that the only way to get rid of it was to draw it out—get it out of his system—but he had to do it right or it wouldn't work.

That was why he was getting up early today. He had worked over the weekend to draw, but nothing worthwhile had come of his effort. And there was this urgency in him, like, he had to get it done. He needed to do it as soon as possible. Why? He really couldn't say. But the feeling was there, and there was nothing else he wanted to pay attention to because he was afraid that, if he let his brain think about his life, he'd go insane.

After stumbling out of bed, Zach went to the desk in his room and fumbled around in the dark until he found the lamp there and switched it on. His fingers were on the bulb, and it burned him when it lit. Cursing, he shook his hand sharply and then looked in frustration at all the papers and materials covering the desk. How was he supposed to start a new drawing with all that crap there? In one motion, he swept the desk clear with his arms, knocking papers, pencils, pens, erasers, permanent markers, an empty glass, and whatever else happened to be in the way onto the floor. Then he sat down, back hunched over, elbows on the desk, holding his head in his hands and jamming his palms against his forehead. Just thinking. Trying to clear his tired brain enough to figure out what he wanted to do.

He would have to start over again. But how? He'd tried five times and come up with failures. What was that dumb line that old people used . . . something about practicing making things perfect. Well, he didn't feel that way right then—that if he kept practicing, he'd eventually get it right. Zach had no idea if he'd ever get it right, the way he wanted it to look; he just kept going because the picture was hammered into his head and he had an uncharacteristic obsession with drawing it clearly.

An eerie light had crept across the room, which was dark black in the farther places but bright gold at the desk. The way everything looked made Zach's stomach knot, for some reason. Or maybe that was just because he was hungry, or nauseated. The flu was going around at school. Maybe he was getting it.

No. He was making excuses.

Sighing, he bent over and shuffled through the papers on the floor until he found a blank piece. The world was a bitter place. There was no such thing as karma, no yin and yang crap, where there was one good day for every bad so there'd be a balance. All he had was bad, lately. There was no balance. His life was tipping downward and there was nothing he could do about it. It sucked to be fifteen. You were old enough to realize parents were nothing special, but you were too young to really get away from them. You were stuck, until you could drive, and even then, you wouldn't be able to go anywhere unless you got a car, which you'd have to pay for yourself. And that would take years. Probably until he reached college, if he made it that far.

He'd begun drawing, again. Pulled the paper onto the desk and grabbed a piece of black chalk he'd kind of stolen from the kids next door as they'd sat outside on their driveway yesterday afternoon. They hadn't cared. In fact, they'd really wanted him to come draw with them. Begged him. But Zach wasn't into playing with some little kids.

His brain turned suddenly to thoughts of a new girl at school. She'd come into his civics class the week before—Friday—and even Evan had commented on her looks. She was really cute, with long, dark hair and freckles. And she was thin, but built in the right places. She'd looked all shy and quiet, and she'd been told to take a seat. She'd sat two desks ahead in the row over from Zach. Not really close enough, but he'd watched her during class. Wondered about her. Her name was Hannah.

He hadn't said a word to her, and he wasn't intending to, but he could look, anyway. Maybe school wouldn't be too bad, then. With the interest of Hannah in civics and an idea for his art class, he might be able to make it through the day.

Looking down at his work, Zach realized he'd let his mind wander too much. His picture was sloppy and too dark. The black chalk had gotten all over everything. Its dust was making a mess on his desktop and his hands were virtually black. There was no way this piece was going to work. Swearing, Zach crumpled the piece of paper into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder, where it joined the rest of his screw-ups in a pile on the floor.

His parents both forgot him that morning; apparently, they each thought the other was going to give Zach his ride and they just left. Zach didn't realize it until both of them had already gone, because he hadn't left his room to go get breakfast. He'd just scribbled on paper for an hour or so and then gotten dressed, and by the time he'd brushed his teeth and gone downstairs, he noticed the house was empty. Normally, he would've been ok with that, because he'd be late to school but be able to blame his parents for it (although, knowing them, they'd find some way to make it his fault, like, "Why didn't you come tell us you were still in the house? You should've flown to school, then!"). But this morning, he actually wanted to get to his classes. He didn't want to miss art; he wanted to talk to the teacher about how he could get this picture done and over with.

He'd called Evan, but Evan didn't answer. Not knowing what else to do, he figured he'd just have to walk the couple of miles and be late. He'd miss civics, and that irritated him. He actually wouldn't have minded sitting through that class today, but he was going to miss it. Evan would have the new girl to look at all to himself. Life sucked. And it sucked more because it started to rain when he was halfway there. It was October. It was cold. By the time he reached the school building, his shoes were soaked through and his clothes were sticking to him. Whatever books and papers were in his bag were most likely ruined, so he could forget any of the homework he'd attempted over the weekend (which wasn't much, but still . . .). Water was literally dripping off his hair and nose and eyelashes when he walked in the front door. Then he had to go to the main office to get a tardy slip, and the secretary made some idiotic comment about how he shouldn't be out playing in the rain, which Zach totally ignored, and he was shoved off into second hour.

Ada was there, but she was zoning off into space and not paying attention to geometry, so she didn't see him when he entered the room. Handing the teacher his tardy slip, Zach sat down next to Evan and sighed. The teacher heard and gave him an annoyed look, so he waited before she turned away to whisper to Evan, "My parents forgot me. I had to walk."

Evan, half-paying attention to Zach but also trying to listen to what notes he was supposed to be taking, didn't even turn to his friend as he replied, "That sucks." It was clear he didn't want to talk.

For some reason, Evan's casual response really bothered Zach. He was sitting there, dripping wet, late to school; the least Evan could do is give him a sympathetic look or something. But no one cared about him. His parents left him, his friends didn't want to listen to him.

A sudden realization overcame him, as humiliating as it was hurtful: Evan and Ada didn't really care about him. Oh, he'd kind of been saying that for a while, but now he knew it. Felt it. They never really wanted to talk to him, or be seen with him . . . it maybe even went as far as they felt embarrassed to be seen with him. So why did they sometimes pretend? They felt sorry for him, maybe. They were only his friends because he had no others. That was definitely true in Ada's case. She felt sorry for him, but she didn't really want to be his friend, so to kind of pay herself back for being stuck with him, she occasionally used him to her advantage. The minute someone better came along, or the second he called her on treating him like dirt, she began ignoring him. Forgot he was around.

And Evan? Well, Evan obviously used Zach too. Used him to make his own self not appear like a big loser with no friends at all. When Evan came to the high school as a new student, he'd clung to Zach to not look like a nerd. He asked him to go places just because he didn't want to show up at a party or someone's house without a friend in tow. Now that he was getting more involved with all that theater stuff—now that he'd found his niche—he was going to leave Zach in the dust. He already was.

People must think he was a complete loser. An absolute moron. An idiot. Someone just kind of there—only visible when a purpose for him arose. He already knew his parents felt that way, and he'd sort of said on the surface that Ada and Evan felt like that, but now he knew it was true. And it hurt.

Zach didn't consider himself emotional; he didn't really think of emotions at all, so he actually couldn't have considered himself or not considered himself subject to them. He didn't get overexcited or super depressed or upset—wasn't really moved by much except a cute girl (which didn't exactly involve emotions). Which was why he wasn't quite sure how to deal with this sudden surge of understanding. It was almost like a physical feeling—not exactly pain, but a burning somewhere deep inside. A mixture of anger and embarrassment and resent. He hated people. Hated them. They were selfish and mean. Like in that one song: they were either abusers or the abused, users or the used. And he was the abused, the used. He was the sucker. The one people walked over.

It would've been better to be the abuser.

At the end of class, Evan tried to say something to Zach as he gathered up his stuff, but Zach shoved him off and left the room, not wanting to say anything at all. Just wanted to get to his art class. The swelling feeling inside him would've made him say rude things to Evan anyway, and he didn't want to do that, even though Evan probably deserved some rudeness.

When he got to the art room, he felt as if he could relax. Nobody was in there that he cared about. He didn't have to be around anyone he knew. That was nice. He could just blend. But before he sunk into a chair and disappeared, he wanted to talk with the teacher. He wanted to try something different. Because whatever he was doing now with his attempts at drawing, it was getting him nowhere. He'd done pens, pencils, markers, and chalk. He liked using some of those things—especially the chalks and permanent markers—but they weren't doing anything for his work. His pictures kept coming out too . . . too little-kid-like.

He went to the man's desk, which was this super-high, really wide podium thing by the door of the classroom. People were still wandering in, even though the bell was ringing, and they'd probably still be wandering in for the next five or so minutes. As he stood there, waiting for a moment when Mr. Thomas didn't look busy (he was talking to the people coming in, organizing some junk on his podium, pointing out some new supplies), he felt like he was pretty much invisible. People were swarming around him and grabbing the teacher's attention, but he just stood there. Maybe his sense of invisibility was just a reflection of how he'd felt last hour, or that morning, when his parents forgot him, but it was beginning to eat at him, and he felt entirely helpless about it.

"Whaddya need?"

Zach shook his thoughts clear. The teacher was talking to him. "Uh . . . oh yeah. I was going to ask what . . . I mean, I'm trying to do this black and white picture, and nothing's working on it."

The man frowned. "What picture? I don't feel like I've seen you do much."

"Well, I've been working at home."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but none of the pictures looked right. So I was wondering if you maybe had something different I could try." Zach shifted his weight uncomfortably. He knew Mr. Thomas didn't even know his name.

"What have you tried?"

Sighing, Zach answered, "Markers, pencils, chalk, pens."

Chewing his lip, the teacher stared into space momentarily, rubbed his chin, thought—then motioned for Zach to follow him to the back of the room.

There, amidst shelves and shelves of junk, were two doors. One led to a dark room and then into another classroom. The other was a storage closet. This was where Mr. Thomas took Zach. Turning on the light and beginning to rummage through the shelves, the man said, "Sometimes you just have to try something totally new. I'd have you attempt a silk screen, but Stan's the best student to show you how to do it, and he's been busy with his competition piece, so that'll have to wait. But I'm going to give you some oils . . ."

As he said this, he handed Zach a dusty box.

" . . . It's just black and white in there. Maybe a gray. And there're brushes too." He was still digging amongst the junk. Then, he pulled a metal container off the shelf and placed it on top of the box in Zach's arms. "You'll also need this stuff. Kind of nasty, but you use it to thin the paint and clean the brushes." He was now looking at Zach, no longer concerned with the shelves. "Turpentine smells. Can be pretty toxic, actually, so go open the window and sit next to it. Oils are messy, though, and they're hard to clean up, so you need the turpentine to get the paint to move." He switched off the light, waited for Zach to leave, then left the storage room himself and shut the door and began walking back up to his podium. "One cool thing about oils is that if you mess up, the paint doesn't dry for hours, so you can always get your brush back up there to work out your mistakes. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Zach mumbled, looking at the stuff he'd just been given. It really didn't matter what his response had been; the teacher had left him already to help someone else. So, choosing an empty canvas from one of the shelves, he parked himself by a window, opened it to the cold, gray day outside, and started to look at what he'd been given.