It's summer, and the older kid who smokes spice on the jungle gym and tips over the dumpster in rage-fits has given me a tank of stick bugs.

"I told you not to spend time with that boy. He's a bad influence. He looks like a school shooter," Mom says.

She looks at the tank of stick bugs. The stick bugs move like hair rustling in wind. 

"What are they for?" Mom asks. "What do they do?"

"They're my new friends," I say.

My mom looks at me sadly. She looks at me like, why aren't you out throwing a ball?

I learn the older kid is named Skyler because he tells me that's his name when he finds me at the park gathering leaves for the stick bugs.

Skyler invites me over to his house. He lives close by. His house looks like an ugly tooth in a messed-up mouth. His dad is in the living room, in a wheelchair, watching Beavis and Butthead on TV.

"Hey, Darryl," Skyler says with disdain.

Darryl doesn't even look over his shoulder as we go into Skyler's room.

It's a total mess. This mess makes me want to clean. It smells like cold pizza and feet. We sit on his rank bed. There is an indent on the wall spotted red.

"What's that?" I say.

"Oh that," Skyler says. He shows me his knuckles, which I now see are swollen and scabbed. "When Daryll fucks with me, I get so mad sometimes I punch the wall."

Skyler pulls out a laptop.

"The stick bugs are doing great by the way," I say, "I've been feeding them. They crawl around. I've been naming them after the characters in my favorite books. Their names are Klaus, Violet, Sunny, Olaf. . ."

"Look at this," Skyler says, thrusting the laptop screen in my face.

He shows me pictures of women with huge boobs and swollen mouths. It grosses me out.

"You don't like this stuff?" Skyler says tapping on his laptop, kneading his crotch with the other hand.

"How about this?" Skyler says.

He shows me a video that is incomprehensible. A group of naked men with huge, terrifying penises, mauling at each other like animals.

One man puts his arm inside another man's butt. All the way up to his elbow!

I gag. Skyler seizes with laughter.

I feel angry. I get up and leave.

"Don't be a pussy," he yells as I pass Darryl, who is asleep.

That night at dinner my brain forgets, and I mention that I went to Skyler's. Mom and Dad get mad. I get grounded.

Later, I check on my tank of stick bugs, and the stick bugs are gone. The tank is empty. The stick bugs must have escaped!

I search for the stick bugs. They couldn't have gone far.

"Mom, Mom," I say, "if you see the stick bugs crawling around, tell me. They escaped their tank."

"Cariño," she says, "Your pet bugs have died. I am so very sorry."

She cups my face, kisses my forehead.

I pull away.

"What do you mean they died?"

"Cristian, they were dead. They were not moving. I threw them away when they stopped moving," she says.

"Mom," I say, enraged, "they were stick bugs. They are still. That is what they do."

"I'm telling you they were dead. I poked one of the bugs and it didn't move."

She gets up. She is done with the conversation. She has other things to get done.

"You killed them," I say.

"Don't start with that," Mom says.

The wall in my bedroom is white, blank. I face the wall, standing. With everything I have, I punch the wall. It hurts, but I force down the urge to yell. Tears soak my face. I punch the wall again. I punch and punch.

I don't make a dent.

.