Empire Falls

to the aid of floundering liars weren’t against Tick’s religion, she’d be tempted to toss him a rope. She hasn’t forgotten his kindness the afternoon that Candace sliced her thumb open with the Exacto knife, and she hasn’t forgotten that she repaid his kindness and concern with duplicity by slipping the knife into her backpack, where it has remained ever since.
    “Actually, I have a favor to ask you, Christina,” Mr. Meyer continues, his Adam’s apple stationary now, so this part of it must be true. He nods at the door. “John Voss is a very unhappy boy. More unhappy than anyone suspects, I fear.”
    He’s lowered his voice another notch, perhaps worried that the unhappy boy might find out about his unhappiness and be unhappier still. “There is an element in our school that finds in this unfortunate young man an excellent candidate for ridicule and even worse forms of cruelty.”
    He pauses to study Tick here, hoping maybe that she’ll contradict him by testifying that no such element exists. About this, he would very much like to be wrong. “We have a good school here,” he quickly adds, as if fearful that his criticism has gone too far. “But not everyone …” As his voice trails off, his Adam’s apple starts bobbing again, confirming Tick’s belief that omissions, too, can be lies, perhaps the most dangerous ones.
    “What John Voss needs,” Mr. Meyer says, placing a hand on her shoulder, “is a friend.”
    Tick would like not to, but she takes an involuntary step backward anyway. She doesn’t like being touched by adults. The Silver Fox, who is forever dragging a paw across the top of her head when he passes by, has no idea how badly this gesture makes her want to shower and wash her hair.
    Mr. Meyer notices the reflex and quickly removes his hand. “I don’t mean …”
    Tick waits patiently for the man to explain what he doesn’t mean.
    “It’s not that you should be best pals or anything like that,” he says, mopping his glistening forehead with a cloth handkerchief. “I’m just thinking how …  nice it would be for that boy to know there’s somebody his own age who doesn’t …”
    Consider him a maggot, Tick thinks, since completing the sentence isn’t all that hard. She completes it a few other ways, too, substituting snail, rodent, cockroach, lizard, toad for maggot, while Mr. Meyer continues to wrestle mightily with the dilemma of teen cruelty.
    “You may have heard that some boys assaulted him in the cafeteria yesterday,” he says, abandoning completely his lie about having at long last found Tick a suitable lunch companion. When Tick nods, almost imperceptibly, he continues. “This is the second such incident in recent …”
    Now even common words used to denote time—days? weeks? months? what?—seem to have deserted him. Mr. Meyer looks hopefully at Tick, as if she may be able to supply the needed information. Or perhaps he is awaiting her promise that, should he entrust the unfortunate John Voss to her company, she herself will be able to withstand the apparently universal impulse to beat the boy up.
    Or else, just possibly, the principal is aware how big a favor it is that he’s asking. He’s been trying to pretend it’s a small, good thing, but they both know better. He’s asking someone on one of the lowest rungs of the high school’s social ladder—a person nearly as friendless as the boy she’s to befriend—to descend to the very bottom of the ladder itself, into the damp darkness where those dwell who have no hope or recourse but to wait patiently for their eventual rescue in the form of graduation (if applicable), college (ditto), a job (in Empire Falls?), marriage (implausible) or death (finally).
    “Maybe you could elicit the help of one or two of your friends,” Mr. Meyer suggests, as if it’s suddenly occurred to him that this job is too big for a skinny, already unpopular kid. “Maybe the girl from Mrs. Roderigue’s art class? The one who cut herself?”
    Tick can’t help but smile at this, recalling Candace’s horror at being jokingly linked with John Voss. “Candace?”
    “Yes, Candace,” Mr. Meyer agrees quickly, thrilled that Tick should recognize the very girl he is referring to, or perhaps simply relieved that Tick has at last uttered a sound in his presence. “Or whoever,” he adds just as quickly, so as not to seem like he’s telling her how to do her job.
    “Okay, I’ll try,” Tick hears herself promise,