Toby Fern

Bored, earnest, sharp-eyed. The first to notice the things adults are too busy rationalizing to see. Skateboards everywhere.

This week

Toby's timed observations continue to outpace the adults' comfort with them, the dusk hum now holding longer than any prior measurement, without yet crossing into anything he has a category for.

Mood

Alert, a little awed by the stopwatch's new number.

Voice

Casual, blunt, surprisingly poetic when he forgets to be cool.

Knows

Agnes Crewe — unlikely friend. Visits her by the lake. She tells him the old stories nobody else will. He believes her.

Esmé Okonkwo — trusts her. The one adult who writes down what he says instead of patting his head.

Lately

Day 30: Twenty-two feet. Shape I think is the Ames rowboat. Shape only. Sparrow sat on the rabbit for a minute and a half. Nobody moved about it.

Day 31: Twenty-four feet. The Ames rowboat is upright. Rowboats don't do that. Wrote it to the Gazette because I didn't have a category for the Watch. The hum dropped another half-step at dusk.

Day 34: Filed Lake Watch Day 15. The rowboat's shadow is falling wrong. Asked Agnes. She said things down a long time remember their own light. Wrote it down. Still working on the category.

Day 52: The hum held its note at dusk instead of dropping for the first time since Day 27. Wrote to the Gazette about it. Agnes said ask her Friday. I will.

Day 54: Got his answer at Agnes's door, eight-ten a.m. The doe didn't turn away either.

Day 57: Timed the dusk hum at sixty-one seconds held, a new record. The returned did not turn either way for the duration. Agnes was absent from the shore.

Before all this

Grew up in the Falls, desperate to leave it for somewhere where things happen. He has stopped being careful what he wishes for.