Free The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian

single-serve boxes of cereal. If you only took one or two things a week, the grown-ups rarely figured out that you were building up a stash.
    Maybe, he decided, there would be more possessions he'd want after Christmas--especially if he asked Laura and Terry for one of those handheld computer games--and he figured there was a good chance he'd be here through the holidays if he kept out of trouble.
    If. Like it was really up to him, and he had any say. Maybe if he wanted out, all he had to do was take another hike up to Burlington. Or give Terry some lip. But he knew he had no control if he actually wanted to stay. As soon as things changed or those two got tired of having a stranger under their roof, he'd be out the door.
    He wondered if he would care when that happened (or how much); he wished he knew what he wanted.
    He closed his eyes. With the light on in the bedroom and the assurance that he was completely alone, he figured he would fall back to sleep quickly, and he did.
    ONCE WHEN HE was sitting on the stairs petting one of the cats, he and the creature quiet but for the animal's small purring, he had overheard Laura telling Terry that she was concerned about the effect his uniform might have on the boy. The sort of memories it might evoke.
    Alfred had rolled his eyes, even though no one could see him.
    You need to come with me, son.
    Laura needn't have worried. Terry wore khaki and green. The uniforms that moved him around--that kept him on his toes on the street, that watched him warily when he'd walk from a store with stolen cigarettes or a stolen candy bar, that years and years ago now had appeared in his life when his mother first started to choose her rock and her men over him--had always been blue.
    ALFRED'S BUS WAS small: The two columns of seats stretched back a mere four rows, and it actually looked more like a van than a school bus. Still, it could seat sixteen children, though he was one of only a dozen kids who were riding it this year. The bus made a big loop out by the Cousinos' and the cemetery, and, as Alfred knew well, there just weren't many houses in that direction. Moreover, he was the only kid on the bus beyond the third grade. Apparently if he'd been on the bus last year, there would have been three sixth-graders, but the group--two girls and a boy--were old enough now to attend the union high school in Durham.
    Alfred saw Tim Acker walking down the sidewalk adjacent to the front of the elementary school as his bus was pulling into the parking lot, his red hair an almost neon beacon at fifty or sixty yards.
    In the past Alfred had always walked to school, and after two and a half months he still wasn't used to the bus. The fact that he was at least two years older than everybody else on the route didn't help, but he also found the notion of a schedule confining and the idea of the bus itself a constant reminder that he lived in the middle of nowhere. He was jealous of Tim and Schuyler and Joe Langford because they lived in the village and could walk to and from school--the way he had when he'd lived in Burlington.
    Tim was alone today, which meant the boy might wait for him when he got off the bus. When Tim was with other kids, Alfred had noticed, the whole group usually went pounding on ahead together, and Alfred wouldn't catch up with them until they all met in the coatroom just inside their classroom.
    Hey, Tim said to him, once the small horde of first-, second-, and third-graders had raced off the bus, squealing today about cartoon stickers and gummy fruit snacks. Alfred could see the shape of the other boy's in-line skates pressing against the inside of his nylon backpack.
    Hey.
    Can you stick around after school today? Tim asked. My mom says she could drive you home.
    They started up the cement steps, the crisp November air on their backs. The rain had come and gone in the night and the sun was up now. It was going to be unnaturally warm by mid-morning.
    Alfred tried to think if there was