SAL
Sal spent the weekend after the stranger sat on his bench worrying about what the man wanted with Mr Merkel. He couldn’t be Mr Merkel’s friend. A friend would have called Mr Merkel himself, but the man on the bench had come at him sideways, spying on him and passing messages through Sal. When Sal went to Mr Merkel’s classroom for lunch on Monday he was planning to tell him about the man right away, but Mr Merkel was standing beside his desk with his black leather briefcase in one hand and a grin on his face.
‘I thought we’d have an adventure,’ he said, with that thin fiber of sound Sal loved pinging in his voice. He led Sal right out the front door without Ms Pratzer seeing them. As they climbed into Mr Merkel’s car Sal heard the shouts of his classmates on the playground, and despit
