One afternoon while walking home from school, Tommy realized that it had been over a week since he glimpsed his prize. In that week, he'd paid attention in school and spoken with his friends, especially Jacob. During lunch a few times, he caught Jacob eyeing him suspiciously over his chocolate milk pouch. Tommy could tell his friends were confused about his sudden reclusiveness, though they never mentioned it. They included him back in the fold as if he'd never left.

Being so far away from the stone it was easy for his little mind to see that the little blue pebble was tainting his life, but as he approached the trailer he could hear it calling him again. He shook his head, but he felt it pulling him in. It was something he had gotten used to, but this time it was different. It felt aggressive, something dark and red. It was angry. It was lonely. And it was hungry.

Tommy had neglected his special prize. The prize that had picked him above all others. He felt the shame grow hot on his face and increased his stride.

He reached down for the well used cigar box hidden in the small space between his night table and his bed, but something caught his eye. Strawberry shortcake had a large knot, and behind it a shadow of a small form sobbing.

He immediately withdrew himself from his room, abandoning his secret treasure and fled to their secret place. At the electrical box two twisted bends from their trailers he found Mary Ellen.

"You okay, Mary?" he asked quietly, reaching a hand to stroke her shoulder. She jumped at his touch, turning further away.

His eyebrows pulled together as he tried to keep his voice even. "Why'd you ask me out here if you didn't want to see me?" he asked. She sniffled quietly to herself, before looking up at him. His fists clenched at his sides, shaking with suppressed rage.

Her eye had been blackened, along with the column of her nose. Blood trickled down her face from where her eyebrow split. The look in her eyes though, those eyes that once held such a brightness now looked broken. Detached and hollow. It was not like Mary Ellen at all.

"Mary Ellen, Jesus! What happened?"

"I'm running away, Tommy. I'm leaving this place," she said defiantly. "I can't ever go back. Not never. Not after that. I told him to go to hell, Tommy. I told him to go to hell and rot."

"And he beat you?"

"No that was after. He didn't have no reason for this one. Just drunk and mean."

Tommy opened his mouth to talk her out of it. Tell her to just stay with him a little longer. Tell her not to leave him. Her eyes widened, the defiance replaced with terror. Looking over his shoulder, Tommy could make out a thin, disheveled figure cutting a striding path toward him. In its hand was a beer bottle.

Her hands clutched at his, followed by frantic shoving. "Go Tommy. Go now. Run!" She gave him another hard shove, and without truly thinking it through, he ran a wide path back toward his trailer. He looked behind him multiple times searching for her, but she was already gone.

"S'at where you been you little whore? Running off with all them little boys? You just like your Momma you little bitch!" He screamed at the spot where they had once stood. The bottle crashed behind him and he ran faster. It was the first and only time he would see the man who bestowed so many bruises on such a tiny girl.

He paced his room, listening. He heard the shouts, but was unable to determine what had transpired. He could only infer that Mary Ellen had been caught. He could only hope that he would see her again to ask. He should have stayed. He could have taken her with him. His anger at himself grew to a point where it ached him, then it changed to something else.

Ms. Finnstein's snarky remarks ran through his mind, and as if prompted by some unseen force, other images of unfairness followed. The Technicolor hues of Mary's face, his father's belt coming for him again and again, his useless mother in her useless housecoat and his brother teasing him. Always teasing.

With his hand firmly wrapped around his treasure, the anger and hatred flowed through him. He began to curse them all. His teacher, mother, father, brother but especially Crutchfield. He hated them until tears leaked from his eyes and a scream stuck in his throat like bile. And finally, his hand constricting furiously around the stone, he wished for them to suffer. He wished for them to feel pain. He wished for them to die.

He quickly withdrew his hand from his pocket as the temperature of the stone skyrocketed. Where before had been an opaque, deep crystalline blue, a solid red, the color of blood consumed it. The stone burned hot for a single instant before the heat began to drain away, drawing the red color with it, as if a plug pulled in the center.

A voice floated soft on the air. "As you wish," it said.

He jumped, almost dropping it. He looked around him quickly under the bizarre notion that someone else might have seen the spectacular spectacle that he had.

His breaths pulled in and out of him uneasily as he tried to come to terms with what he had witnessed. He lay down in his lumpy bed and looked at the clock. 3:23. He took a few moments to convince himself that it was only his imagination. Stones did not talk. Not even this one. Then, clutching the stone tightly, he fell into an uneasy, dreamless sleep.