The next day, Henry is louder in class, like someone's turned up the volume on Mrs. Walker's phonograph. Ms. Lewis goes to get more chalk from the teacher's room, because she doesn't know where she put her other pack. The other kids laugh when he starts making fart noises with his hands. He's answering questions wrong. Ms. Lewis lets it slide, but warns him this behavior won't be accepted tomorrow. Henry takes it to mean “be as noisy as possible”, and the entire day stops so he can smile crooked, say things too big for his mouth, and become so alive it makes me wonder how hard he hit his head.

After school we walk home together, though I feel a little weird. We're not walking together – he's a little farther ahead of me – but I asked him to wait, and he didn't. Henry sees the tree again and throws his books at me. He circles it once. Twice, watching it like he's waiting for it to move. He wrinkles his nose and walks home.

“Henry, wait,” I say, trying to catch up to him. “Henry.”

He stares ahead. His fists are at his sides.

I touch his shoulder and he turns to me. “Don't forget your books, I don't want them.”

Henry stares at them. He looks at me, then at the books again, then at me. He doesn't take them. “Absolutely marvelous,” he mutters, inhaling with a smile, and then goes home. The front door slams hard.

I deliver papers one morning to see Henry's house has a light on. I don't think about it. I go home, get breakfast, and then walk to school. Pottersville is wet and sad, the colors running into the river. The trains are running late again, and everything is very quiet.

Bill and I walk to school, but I look at Henry's house. “He's probably at school now,” Bill says.

I hum and follow him.

He isn't waiting for the front doors to open. Arthur and Lionel are there. They see me come up. “What's going on with Henry?” asks Lionel.

I know what he means, but I still ask, “What?”

“He's being weird.”

“I heard from someone in my class that he swore at Ms. Lewis,” Lionel says.

“That didn't happen,” Arthur says.

“Henry wouldn't do that,” I say. “He wouldn't.” He wouldn't do a lot of things he's done in Ms. Lewis' class.

“Maybe he's just excited to be back? Everyone's paying attention to him, now.”

“Maybe I should disappear,” Arthur says, and the suggestion is floaty and not said at anyone.

“Why?”

“To get all that attention, too.”

“I saw him,” I say. “He looked like he was about to die. Like, the worst flu ever.”

Something cracks in the distance. An empty cart on Broad Street collapses on its wheels, piled with sticks and branches from the tree next to it. The apples from the general store's display is almost caught under the tree branches. The big tree now has this big empty patch of leaves. Birds fly away. People start going to clean up the mess until they point up. Other people start looking. Some people start running. Everyone is talking. Peeking out from the tree, more than halfway up, is Henry. His hair is all over the place. His eyes are wide and his face is a dark color.

“He's doing it,” Lionel says.

I stare. My stomach starts falling. “He's always wanted to,” I say, but it doesn't taste right. He's been afraid of the tree in his yard for years, and the tree on Broad Street is bigger and taller. My head says that Henry wouldn't do that. He'd wish it for years and years and years, but never actually do it.

The school doors open, but no one is really paying attention. A train shoots down the tracks for Allisport.

When he gets to the top, Henry Walker stares out above our heads. He screams long and hard into the sky.