She had arrived early, and some of the kids saw her sitting in the waiting room. A contagion of sly texts and surreptitious chats ensued as rumors about her and Kenji spread, and by the end of the first week, it was understood by everyone, even the most clueless, that Benny and his family were to be their ostracized Other, against whose strangeness they could define their collective normality. They clucked like chickens when he passed, whipped out their phones to call him names, so that when he walked down the hall, you could almost see the silent cloud of text bubbles, trailing after: Loco,
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