Nobody really knew that Jack Kemper saw things except his mother and Kyle. Of course, his mother didn't understand. Jack had tried to explain to her once, long ago when he was about five years old, that there were creatures in the clouds. Not just puffs of white that shaped animals and faces, but actual living, moving creatures. He could see them on any day that clouds were in the sky, whether they were large and white and billowy—big pillows against a blue backdrop—or whether they were flat and purple-gray with golden linings, bringing tidings of upcoming storms. If there were clouds, Jack could see the creatures in them. They looked down at him and smiled, and when he smiled back, they'd laugh. He could never hear them; they were too high up. But he could see their mouths open and close in laughter. And he noticed them move, sometimes retaining their form and sometimes morphing into new molds, but always moving of their own free will. Not because of the wind.

Mrs. Kemper had merely blamed her son's overactive imagination for the cloud creatures. She knew her Jack was a bit of a dreamer. Not like Kyle, who, while Jack was staring into the clouds at the age of five, was already a star in kindergarten T-ball. Yes, Jack was a creative child. She had hoped he'd grow out of his imaginings and grow into his academics, but that hadn't happened yet.

School was basically a means of torture for Jack. He really didn't hate anything, except for school. There weren't any particular people or subjects he disliked; it was just everything about it, all put together. It was a place he never could do well enough in. A place where everybody tried to get him out of his mind and make him talk. He didn't have any friends. That didn't bother him too much; he knew other kids wouldn't quite get him. Kyle, on the other hand, had more friends than he could count. He even had some in the other grades.

School was a small private institute covering kindergarten through eighth grade. There was one class for each grade level. Jack and Kyle were with twenty-one other kids in their eighth grade room. Their homeroom teacher was Mrs. Madison, and she taught them social studies. They moved to other classes for language arts, math, and science. Mrs. Madison was all right, Jack thought. The other students thought she was pretty cool, for a teacher. She let them eat snacks in class and played games before tests where the winners could win a pizza party. Even Kyle liked her pretty much. But the only teacher Jack sort of liked was Miss Collins, the music teacher. Strangely enough, that was the class that most other kids seemed to hate, because they didn't like to sing. Jack didn't like to sing, either. That wasn't why he felt most safe in music. He felt most safe there because Miss Collins was kind to him. She looked at him and smiled, sometimes, as if she knew what everybody else thought and didn't agree.

The eighth graders had music class the day after Jack's mother talked to him. All twenty-three of them gathered into the small room down the hall from the cafeteria, taking seats in the rows of chairs that faced a long dry-erase board on the opposite wall. There was a piano in the room, which Miss Collins played when the students sang. There were also other instruments: xylophones, a guitar, recorders, a drum set, and various percussion instruments. Jack wanted to try all of them at some point, even though he'd never played anything musical in his life.

There were assigned seats in music. Jack didn't like that. He knew some teachers assigned seats so no boys or girls would be left on their own, but usually, Jack preferred being in a corner by himself to being surrounded by kids he knew didn't want to be next to him. As it was, a normally talkative girl named Ellie was on his right, and his brother's good friend Matt was on his left. Neither one of them said anything to him, which was fine by Jack.

"You'll be using your music texts today," said Miss Collins, closing the door and walking to the front of the room. She watched the class as it settled down, waiting for the whispering and laughing to stop. "Good. Kyle, Madeline—can you please pass the books out? Thank you."

Jack picked at the pants of his uniform. There was a thread coming out from the seam at his knee.

Miss Collins was young and thin, with soft blonde hair that floated around her head and hands that were always clasping and unclasping. She wore bright-colored shirts and earrings that reflected the window light, causing little specks of whiteness to dart across the walls on sunny days. The girls often whispered that Miss Collins had gone to college to be a dancer, not a music teacher, but that she'd gone blind in one eye and couldn't dance because of it. None of them knew whether that story was true; nobody ever dared to ask her if she could see out of both eyes. They certainly looked the same.

"Page one-hundred-and-forty-two, please," Miss Collins was saying. "'Song of Poseidon.'"

"Song of Poison?" cried Jeff Proctor from behind Jack.

Jack took the text as his brother handed it to him and began turning pages. What had Miss Collins asked him to turn to, again? One-hundred-and-forty-two. That was it.

"Song of Your Mom," Kyle sarcastically corrected Jeff.

"Are you talking about my mom?"

"Shut up, Jeff. Your mom is hot!" That was from Mark. He was sitting several seats away.

Jeff laughed. "Now you're just being sick!"

"You're already sick in the head," snickered Kyle, returning to his seat after handing out the last of the textbooks.

"No way, man," replied Jeff. "That's your brother."

Kyle half-laughed. Kids always joked about his brother. He didn't take it seriously. He didn't like it either, but he thought Jack should stick up for himself. It wasn't his job to stop them.

"All right, class. Enough talking, now." Miss Collins sat down at the piano. "I want you to listen to me, first, and then we'll try it together. This is just our warm-up piece for today."

Already in his own thoughts, Jack smiled to himself. He hadn't even heard Jeff's comment. He'd been too busy concentrating on the specks of light on the walls. Most of them were from Miss Collins's earrings (it was a sunny day), but not all of them were reflections. Some of them moved even when her head was still. They swam across the ceiling, moved down toward the corners meeting the floor. Zipped between the students' chairs and occasionally moved out of the window. They were similar to the shadows he'd seen in his bedroom the previous night, only they weren't nearly as unsettling. These were playful. These were made of light.

He didn't sing when Miss Collins asked the students to. The voices of everyone around him blended into a sort of white noise, background. He managed to hear when Miss Collins called out a new page to turn to. For the most part, he kept up. He just couldn't sing. He couldn't bring noise from his mouth when he was intent on watching the lights. When they were there, he cherished them.

It felt like no time at all had passed when Ellie elbowed Jack. "Pass your book!" she said in irritation. "It's time to go."

When class was dismissed, Jack was the last to get out of his seat. He waited patiently for everyone moving around him to disperse, and then he stood up. Last in line as well, he watched his feet as he walked. Now he'd have to wait a whole week before coming to music again. It was his safe class. He didn't feel anxious there. Miss Collins never called on him when he wasn't ready to answer. She never made him feel stupid. Out the door he went, telling himself that at least he had his math homework done and ready to turn in. Math was his next class.

He didn't see the music teacher come to her doorway and gaze after him as he moved down the hallway.