Free As Simple as Snow by Gregory Galloway

know,” I said. “I don’t even know what mine was.”
    Mr. Devon motioned me to follow him into his office, where he pulled a book from one of his shelves. “Look at these,” he said. “Brillo pads and soup cans. Not so different from cheese boxes, are they? And these are in museums and books.”
    “Maybe I should get that out of the trash, then,” I said.
    Mr. Devon laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
    A book on his desk caught my attention. Arshile Gorky. It was the same one I’d seen at Anna’s. “Did Anna borrow that from you?” I asked.
    “No,” he said. “Anna. That’s your friend, right?”
    “Yeah. She had the same book.”
    “Oh, really? Maybe we should all get together and talk about art sometime.”
    “She’d probably like that,” I said.
    The book was a coincidence, I guess, and later Anna made it clear that she didn’t want to have any conversation with Mr. Devon, let alone one about art. At least that’s what she told me.
     
     
     
    When the final bell rang and I went to my locker, I realized that I hadn’t worn a coat. It was because of that stupid costume I’d had on in the morning. You would think that someone would have reminded me, been looking out for me. Isn’t that what mothers are for? And of course she wasn’t picking me up after school. Which meant that I had to walk home with no coat, no hat, and no gloves. I started out of school and walked slowly past parents parked in their cars, waiting for their sons and daughters, in hopes that someone would see my plight and offer some help.
    “Hey, cheese loaf,” I heard someone yell at me. I turned around. It was Anna. She was hurrying out the door. “Where’s your pretty yellow wrapper?”
    “Billy Godley is wearing it.”
    “Come on, you were a lot more believable as a box of cheese than he was.”
    “I’m sure I was.”
    “Where are you going now?”
    “Home, I guess.”
    “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
    “I forgot it this morning.”
    “Do you want to wear mine?” It was a man’s coat. An old black overcoat from the 1940s or 1950s. It probably would have fit me.
    “That’s okay,” I said.
    “You could wear my blazer,” she said.
    “I wouldn’t want to misrepresent Satan’s School.”
    “My mom’s supposed to pick me up. Do you want us to give you a ride home?”
    “That would be great.”
    “Who knows, maybe we can convince her to take you home after a while. Instead of right away, I mean.”
    “That would be even better.”
    Mrs. Cayne pulled into the circular drive in front of the school, and Anna went and spoke with her and then motioned me to the car. “Get in front,” Anna said, “so you can be closer to the heat.”
    It was the first time that I had seen Anna’s mother up close in the daytime. She looked crazier than ever. Her hair was particularly wild that day, and seemed magnetically drawn to the roof of the car. There was a pencil sticking out of the back of her hair, as if someone had jabbed it into her skull.
    “So where’s your costume?” Mrs. Cayne asked.
    “I took it off late in the day,” I said.
    “Anna said you went as a block of cheese.”
    “Velveeta.” I didn’t want to correct her.
    “That’s interesting. Seems like a good idea for a costume.”
    “It seemed that way, but it wasn’t really.”
    “Not very practical?”
    “Exactly. Cheese doesn’t offer a lot of range of motion.”
    Mrs. Cayne laughed. It has to be a good thing when you make your girlfriend’s mom laugh. Especially when she’s thinking that you’re an idiot for (1) going to school dressed as a box of cheese and (2) forgetting your coat right after a snowstorm.
     
     
     
    When we got to the Caynes’, Mrs. Cayne offered me some candy. She had bowls of chocolates and M&M’s and nuts all over the place. “I can’t eat any of this stuff,” she said. She always said that. You might think that she had so many bowls of stuff around the house because it was Halloween, but they