In the courtyard, Leonard sits fumbling with the bill of his cap and rustling earmarked pages of his favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo.

 

He has read it six times now, almost seven, with quite a few passages memorized, queued up in his mind like misfit prayers to some obscure god.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His second most earmarked book, A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a close second though, because of its inclusion of his favorite story "The Paradise of Children," in which kids are briefly described as living happily alone in a world without adults.