Free Mr. Fahrenheit by T. Michael Martin Page A

to watch CR. What was going to happen to Bedford Falls now that the saucer had been shot down?
    Whatever it is , this place sure isn’t going to be dreamless anymore.
    Not after tonight.
    The football practice felt a week long. Benji sat waiting on the turnstiles just outside the stadium, hearing the crowd in the bleachers applaud CR’s passes under the hot field lights. Maybe CR had been hurtfully oblivious last night when they were talking about leaving Bedford Falls, but that didn’t matter. Benji felt proud of his best friend, and happy for him.
    When Coach Nicewarner called the end of practice and the crowd started dispersing, Benji’s phone buzzed. Ellie had texted him.
    Can we talk? I’m parked in the gravel lot.
    Benji tapped a response:
    En route!
    She was sitting cross-legged on the hood of her RustRocket station wagon in the crappy spillover lot behind the stadium. How is it possible that she makes everything around her look both better and worse? He didn’t know, but it had been that way since the first time he’d met her in fifth grade.
    Benji’s dad had died in Afghanistan just before Easter that year. His convoy had hit an explosive device on a bridge, and he drowned when his Humvee fell into the river. If Benji was sad about his dad’s death, it was mainly that he’d always felt insufficiently sad about it. He didn’t even really remember him (nor did he remember his mom, who died of ovarian cancer when he was a toddler). His dad had always been deployed or stationed at a base in England.
    On the day it happened, Benji got off the bus, the loops of his backpack straps cutting into his shoulders because he had a double load of books; Zeeko had been sick, and Benji was taking his makeup work to him. Benji was thinking about going on YouTube and watching videos of David Copperfield’s recent performance at the Magic Lantern in Chicago, but then he saw a big black SUV in his driveway, and his first thought was that Papaw had bought an awesome new car and maybe he’d let Benji sit on his lap, steering the steering wheel while Papaw worked the gas pedal, like they’d done in the police station parking lot on Benji’s tenth birthday. There was a gap in Benji’s memory here. On the other side of the gap, a priest and a guy in an army uniform were standing in the corner of the living room, and Papaw, whose eyes looked dark and deeper in his face than normal, like raisins pushed in bread dough, sat on the couch with Benji, asking him if he understood what Papaw had just told him. Benji said, Uh-huh , his body sort of tingling like when his foot would fall asleep. I just, I gotta go give Zeeko his homework.
    From there, Benji’s memories were still frames from a movie.He’s kicking a rock as he crosses the road. The Eustices are hugging him, Dr. Eustice’s chest hair feeling like springy coils under his polo shirt. Benji is standing by a coffin with a flag on it, and he sniffs a few times, and Papaw looks at him like he’s relieved that Benji is finally crying. But he’s not crying: A lot of ladies are wearing different perfumes, and the smell is gross.
    As the months pass, Benji kind of realizes Papaw isn’t the only one who stares at him when they think he’s not looking, like they’re confused by his reaction. Benji tries smiling at them, which seems to make it worse. He feels weird—weirder than normal, even. But he doesn’t know to feel anything other than what he’s feeling.
    Then he gets this idea: Summer is coming up and there’s going to be a countywide fifth-grade talent show in the new high school auditorium, and what could be better than a magic show to make the memory of the old him disappear?
    The day of the talent show, he’s seated between Zeeko and a girl from the other elementary school in town. The girl has blond-almost-brown hair and bright green eyes, and she is so beautiful that Benji