“Are you just getting home from school?” she asked, glancing at the battery-operated clock above the refrigerator. “The others have been here for nearly an hour already.” Gideon scrunched up his nose. “Teacher kept me after school. Didn’t Esta tell you I was gonna be late?” Ruth’s forehead wrinkled. “No, she just said you hadn’t walked with them. I figured you’d walked by yourself through the woods or had decided to walk with some of your friends.” “I ain’t got no friends,” he said, shaking snow off his stocking cap. “Don’t have any,” she corrected. “And what makes you think you don’t have any friends?” Gideon hung his coat and hat on a wall peg and flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. “ ’Cause nobody wants to be around me, that’s what!” Ruth put the roast into the oven and took a seat in the chair opposite him. “Does this have something to do with you having to stay after school?” He shrugged. “Gideon, I need to know what’s going on.
