The Fate of the Universe

Schrodinger looked positively miserable; his lower jaw jutted outward and seemed to hang disconnectedly, his eyes – which due to their bloating appeared far too large for his skull and the orbital cavities in which they were set – gazed at nothing in particular. The tawny frizzed tufts at the top of his ears, normally perking up so spiritedly, were now sodden and crestfallen; they drooped and clung to the rest of his ears’ fur. His legs and head shivered almost self-pityingly, despite him being out in the sultry tropical sun, and despite the soapy water sloshing about in the little plastic tub being tepid at worst. He adopted this demeanour every time without fail; it was either instinctual, or he hoped such an affectation would somehow prevail on his master to postpone his bath for another two weeks.

Little old Schrodinger was half-Pekingese and half-dachshund. His fur was a glossy reddish brown, with sallow brushes on his tail and crest from old age. He wasn’t as fluffy as a Pekingese, but he had the breed’s distinguishing muzzle that looked like it wanted to recoil into his face; nor was his physique as redolent of a sausage as purebred dachshunds, for he stood on longer, sturdier legs, but there was a subtle stretch to his body that still betrayed his dachshund inheritance. It wasn’t wild to speculate of other breeds being mingled into his ancestry, but among the canine citizenry of Belize he was practically a pedigree.

It was perhaps this privilege that had charmed him into thinking so highly of himself, at least according to anyone who observed him. He would always seat himself on the white chair on the front patio under the shade of the veranda overhead, his body sitting erectly and his head cocked up, as if it were his throne from which he surveyed his front yard. And whenever a mongrel dog – or a “potlicker”, as was the more popular regional expression – gallivanted down the street, Schrodinger would perk his ears, grunt so deeply and gutturally that his entire body jerked, and spring from his lofty white perch and yip at the cur so raucously as if it had intruded into his domain; these constant clamours had led the neighbourhood to conclude that the little dog’s noisiness offset his size. Such confrontations were the only regular instances that upset the silence of St. Matthew’s Street, but they occurred far more frequently than one could tolerate, given that the city hadn’t administered any form of animal control in years; consequently its streets and alleys had become infested with stray dogs. The humane would argue that it was for the best, since the last programme involved officers simply tossing food laced with poison to any collarless dog they encountered; it was cancelled after they had received many complaints that the targets of these snares hadn’t always been waifs.

It was most fortunate, then, that Schrodinger had lived to see thirteen years thus far – the little ones were after all known for their longevity – and still had plenty of pluck left in him. He was a cause of much worry during the poisonings because he had grown into a cunning escapist, who exploited any hole large enough to permit him through the wire mesh at the front gate, and knew precisely how to paw against the gate to open it if it was left improperly locked. Whenever he had been let outside, his eyes would fix themselves immediately upon the ironwork of the front gate; if it gaped widely at him or was even only slightly and imperceptibly ajar, he would drop any business he had and dash for it. His mischievous sense of adventure had somewhat relented in recent years, to the relief of his owner. At present he seemed content enough to settle on his favourite patio chair and fancy himself a king.

Schrodinger did indeed have a very pronounced personality that anybody who spent a moment with him could recognize, but equally obvious was how the dog’s disposition, or at least the eccentricity thereof, was a reflection of his master’s, who was by this point laving his father’s shampoo from Schrodinger’s fur and searching for any fleas and ticks. He then picked up his dog – who paddled his front paws as if oblivious of the fact that he was no longer near the small plastic bathtub – placed him down on the concrete patio floor, unchained him from one of the brick columns supporting the veranda, and backed away as the dog shook himself vigorously from head to tail.

The shadow of the house had already reached the front gate. Schrodinger made his way to the front porch and began grunting as he rubbed himself against the potted plants and the door, before he was swathed with a ragged towel. His master then rolled up the hose, washed out the bathtub, and brought the suddenly animated Schrodinger indoors as he took the dog’s toiletries to the pantry.

That evening the two squatted on the veranda, Schrodinger with his snout tucked tightly underneath the balustrade as he peered out at the inactive street, as he was wont to do, and Liam reading one of the physics books he had ordered online. Much to his vexation, the website where he bought these books did not ship to Belize, and in fact he had considered it a personal affront when he discovered that it didn’t even list the country under the drop-down menu bar in its customer address form. For this reason he had to have the books sent to his aunt in Louisiana, who would then kindly post them down to him for his enjoyment. Since this mailing process took weeks at the minimum he found himself in a severe dearth of interesting reading material for extended periods of time, which he pottered away flipping through his collection of “Where’s Waldo?” and “The Adventures of Tintin” while inwardly hankering for each oncoming book about cosmology or quantum mechanics.

He stroked Schrodinger’s fur, clean and sleek thanks to his labours earlier, and after finishing a chapter he placed the book down, huddled closer to his dog, and began staring at the individual filaments of hair as he brushed them with his fingers. Liam had all of a sudden been struck with a feeling of profound loneliness. He had never envisioned matter that way before.

“So it’s made chiefly of empty space. Why does this feel soft then?”

Schrodinger paid him no mind, although the street wasn’t particularly captivating.

“I don’t see much sense in it. I mean, if my atoms don’t ever actually come close to touching your atoms, but are instead repelled by these electromagnetic forces coming from your atoms, then how can your fur feel soft to me?”

Liam lied on his side and squinted at the tip of his finger as he tapped it against the floor. Schrodinger was alerted to this sound, but shortly turned his head away.

“And this reads as solid. Very counterintuitive.”

This was one of the words he had introduced into his lexicon because it seemed to him to recur so resonantly in the theoretical physics books. It was part of his attempt to assume the eloquence and unintentional obscurantism of physicist jargon; he found something oddly satisfactory about expounding on something and having his listeners gawking at him obtusely throughout his lecture. He could picture their brains reeling inside their heads, and he knew he would eagerly bewilder people with these nonsensical bombasts whenever the opportunity presented itself, had he of course not been born predisposed to silence; his teachers used to try to wrest words out of him as much as possible because they believed whatever came out his mouth would inherently be more insightful and germane to the topic than those of his classmates, but were disappointed to find that his input seldom strayed from being terse or curt.

Liam first recalled coming across the word counterintuitive, as well as other catching gems such as perturbation, infinitesimal, and the ever-popular nontrivial, in an article in the Amandalanewspaper about a Belizean who had travelled to the States to earn his doctorate, and that he was currently working at some prestigious university over there on the mathematics behind an effect called gravitational lensing. He had been interviewed in the article and had taken every liberty to voice his encouragements to the young aspirants of Belize – the usual “sky’s the limit” sort of thing, which Liam naturally ignored. What Liam was attentive towards was how much the man seemed to love the phrase “mathematical infrastructure”, and he too thought it had quite a nice ring to it. It made it sound like racking one’s brain over abstruse equations all day was a very constructive, public-spirited livelihood.

Schrodinger perked up his ears and grunted as a couple boys bicycled down the street, cursing at each other noisily. Liam always found it amusing when he jerked with every grunt.

“Liam, suppertime,” came a shout from downstairs.

“I’m coming.”

“So is Christmas.”

Liam and his father ate while watching the 6:30 news on Channel 5, one of two local news stations – the other one, Channel 7, broadcasted in much poorer quality and usually had this droning background noise that drowned out the reporters. Channel 5 switched between three anchors, and Liam had met them all. One he had met in elementary school when his class did a project on lethal yellowing, another he had talked with several times at a bar because he drank with his father occasionally, and the third he knew through her cousin. He wasn’t sure if it was her cousin in the strictest sense of the word, since Belizeans used the term so liberally; first-cousin or third-cousin or the stepson of your godmother’s cousin, they were all at the end of the day considered cousins.

The news report was about a street protest in Belmopan, the capital city located fifty miles inland to safeguard the seat of government against hurricanes; with a population of about 7,000, it was one of the smaller capitals of the world – most of the people in the country clustered within the port of Belize City, where almost all of the activity was. The public service union was calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation because the government didn’t know how to handle its money correctly and morally.

“And in a public show of protest, Moya symbolically presented an award to Prime Minister Said Musa and his government,” said the news anchor.

A mestizo woman held up a framed certificate, and said bitingly, “Certificate of Corruption. This certificate is awarded to the Prime Minister and the government in recognition, it should have said in recognition of outstanding participation in the mismanagement of Belize’s economy between August twenty-seventh, 1998, to present.”

Liam’s father laughed, his shoulders bobbing. Liam continued on his gravy-drenched rice as if indifferent. He had met the Prime Minister too. He knew both of his sons, though he only liked one. The other one, the younger of the two, had caused an uproar not too long ago. Shortly before graduation, he and his high school friends had embroiled themselves with some tough military Gurkhas at a strip club and brothel up the Northern Highway. The cousin of one of his friends – Liam was pretty sure he was a cousin in the truest sense – had been beaten to death because the teenagers had driven off during the brawl and, presumably because of their fear or their drunkenness, had forgotten all about him. He was only fourteen years old, and Liam wondered how in the hell he had been admitted entry into a brothel in the first place.

According to witnesses, the child’s last words were along the lines of “They cyan’t do dis to me! I’m a Zabaneh!” Apparently that was supposed to mean something.

“I don’t think Musa’s a bad man,” said Liam’s father as he wiped his mouth. He was a very messy eater. “It’s just that Ralph Fonseca has him around his little finger. You know what all that minister has done?”

“Wasn’t he that guy that bought one of those airlines? Was it Tropical Air or Island Air or something else? And because he’s minister he had the power to deny landing rights to his competitors?” There was more to it than that, but that was all he could remember at the moment.

“That’s the one. But you know, as they say…”

“Pay peanuts and you get monkeys,” Liam continued his father’s sentence for him.

“They have to get their monies someway, so they wangle for it. They’ve got the strings.”

Liam finished his supper first, as he did every night. He helped himself to some Neapolitan ice cream, sat on the wicker sofa, and began reading his book.

The news had gone to a commercial break.

“More time travel rubbish, huh?”

“Zero-point energy,” he said nonchalantly.

“What the hell is that?” But the father found himself regretting that he had asked.

“Uh, it’s the lowest energy possible in a quantum mechanical system. It could be harnessed in the future to propel spacecraft.”

“I see,” said the father as he hacked at his steak, still red with blood. He was the most carnivorous person Liam knew. “You know about the speed of light?”

“Yes.” Liam was only half-listening.

“You know that if you travel to the moon faster than light and look back at the Earth through a telescope, you can see what happened a week ago? You could change history.”

“Indeed.” This must have been the tenth time his father had told him that. He did it whenever a hypothetical physics topic was broached. His father had a habit of repeating things, particularly corny, morose jokes and exaggerated tales of his childhood in Ireland. Liam used to argue with him about the fact that nothing physical can actually travel faster than light, but he found it pointless after a while, as he would end up repeating himself also.

“You really need to read some fiction for a change, though. They have some good Caribbean novels, you know. Like that East Indian guy…something or other…the one who wrote “Miguel Street”?”

“Naipaul. I read some of his stuff for class in Second Form.”

Liam had in fact read quite a few Caribbean novels. The problem with them, according to him, was that they were all blatantly anti-colonialist. He was white, and a pedigree at that, at least as far back as he could trace – this was a rarity, given that the people of Belize were as crossbred as their dogs – and reading about the harsh lives of the downtrodden and the evil white men who oppressed them had in its redundancy grown not only dull, but offensive. His opinion was never shared, however, since he was the only white person in his class, and his high school. White people – outside of himself and his family, of course – were spectacles to him due to their scarcity; his first exposure to large herds of them was at the London Gatwick airport, and he had commented on that at the time.

He fed Schrodinger and went upstairs. He read his book while listening to a CD of whale songs, and then he fell asleep.

The class lectures seemed to blur by for him the next day. He despised Mondays.

He had whiled his time flicking rolled up bits of paper at his Mayan classmate, Chun, and thinking of witty or profound statements to write on the blackboard during the recess.

Before he knew it, he was walking back home. His gait was always remarkably slow, and he slouched forward under the burden of his knapsack chocked full with heavy textbooks – the school didn’t have lockers, and wouldn’t allow him to keep anything in his desk, so he had to carry everything with him each day. A police car passed by and Liam made sure to pull up his navy blue Dickies; one time he had been stopped by two haughty policemen who teasingly chided him for sagging his trousers. They had told him white people weren’t allowed to sag.

In a couple minutes he came to what was formerly known as the National Stadium, but had recently been renamed the Marion Jones Sports Complex. The Olympian athlete, although American by birth, had Belizean parents, and she had held up both the American and Belizean flag when she won a gold medal; when it happened everyone in Belize had pointed at their televisions in disbelief, and were ecstatic to know that their little country had gained some fame. She came down to Belize once after the event, and it was all a gala affair; they had even organised a parade in her honour. She had been seated in one of the floats, holding a bouquet and waving with a wide smile. Her leg had been in a cast, and when Liam had seen it, he was reminded of Queen Elizabeth’s visit, because she had worn a cast too.

“She isn’t even a Belizean,” he had grumbled to himself in response to all the hubbub and nationwide adulation. And each time he saw the billboard with the words “Marion Jones Sporting Complex” he stifled a bitter laugh, because it consisted of nothing more than a short section of bleachers, a small paved track for jogging, and a football field in the middle. It was in reality more of a simplex than a complex.

He sat on the bleachers under the shade, as he usually did after school, and read his physics book. After a while he rummaged through his pocket to make sure he had some change; it was generally a bad idea to reveal your wallet when sponsoring beggars.

His skin colour was like a lighthouse in a fog.

It wasn’t long before a couple black men lolling at the bottom of the bleachers caught sight of him and cried out, “White bwoy!”

“Fucking hell,” Liam muttered to himself.

They were young, probably in their twenties. They approached him and noted his school uniform. “Cho, you go da S.J.C.?” the one in the undershirt asked.

“Yea.”

They sat on both sides of him. One wore a white undershirt, and the other was shirtless. They were tall, so their heads appeared to loom over him menacingly. Liam felt like he was being beset.

“How long ya been in Belize den?”

“Um, I was born here.”

“Ya liad.”

Liam’s shoulders dropped. “No, I’m serious.”

The shirtless man spoke, “You di talk rass, white bwoy. If you da from hya, how co you no di speak di Creole?”

Liam spoke Creole only with a select clique of friends, and even then he advertently kept it to a minimum. He felt like his voice wasn’t fit for the pidgin, and he was positive that if other people heard him speak that way they would mock and laugh at him. “I was just raised to speak proper Standard English.”

“I no believe dat. You American,” the man said accusingly.

Liam found that allegation insulting. “I’m British, if anything, because I have a British family, and I was raised in a British household.”

“Weh you live, bwoy?”

Liam pointed in the general vicinity of his house. “Around there, by King’s Park.”

“Always di North Side,” said the one in the undershirt as he shook his head. “You rich?”

Liam had only one parent, and his father didn’t have the wherewithal to pay the mortgage; he needed the support of Liam’s uncle, who was a stock market analyst in London. Liam’s family was hardly rich, but they were exceptionally frugal. “Not really.”

“You got a pool?”

“No. But there’s one at the Mexican Embassy.”

“Mutha fyah. How can you be rich and no have a pool for dem gyals? You got a gyalfriend, no?”

Liam laughed nervously and shook his head.

“You da wa battyman or what?”

The shirtless man sucked his teeth. “Let off, bwoy.” He clapped the other man’s bald head.

“I just di check,” he pleaded.

Liam raised up his book again and hoped the two would get the tacit message.

There was a momentary silence, and then the seemingly inevitable was uttered. “Bwoy, you got a dolla?”

Liam had an urge to roll his eyes but thought better of it. He breathed in deeply and poked around in his pocket, feeling for a decagonal dollar coin. He was relieved to hear this entreaty; maybe it meant they were ready to go on their way.

“Here, I have two.”

“No fret about it, man,” said the shirtless one as he lowered Liam’s hand and darted a cross look at his friend. “We no gwine to mooch off a ya. Whatcha name?”

“William, but I’m just called Liam.”

“I’m Toad. And dis da Lickie. No ask we how he gyat di name.”

Lickie smirked, then it dawned on him that he had somewhere to be. “How much ya clock, bwoy?”

Liam paused for a bit. “Oh, ten to four.”

“Rahtid! I gwine to Marta’s now. I’ll check yo later, Toad.” He bucked knuckles with Toad and shook Liam’s scalp roughly before he left.

Toad remained behind, even though Liam was still attempting to read his book.

“Wah music you listen to, little bwoy? Any rockers? Or you into dat American rap?”

Liam figured it would be unwise to say that he didn’t really listen to any form of manmade music. Only whale songs and rainfall were dulcet to his ear. So he chose someone at random. “Beenie Man’s not bad.”

“Ha, yea, man,” and then he began whooping the lyrics, “Sim simma, who got deh keys to my bimma.”

Liam smiled absently.

“So whatchu reading, Liam?”

“Science stuff.”

“Cho.” And he wrenched the hardcover book from the boy’s hands and randomly picked a sentence. He affected a very snobbish voice as he read it aloud. “The fluctuations in the electromagnetic void suggest that any given volume of empty space could contain an infinite number of vacuum-energy frequencies…bwoy, wah rass you da read?”

“As I said. Science stuff.”

Toad made a wry face, and as he did so Liam could infer how he had acquired his nickname. He had such a full, pink bottom lip that flopped down out of his mouth and arced somewhat over his short chin. One could easily imagine a long sticky tongue shooting from his mouth. “I tek physics in high school but it neva mi dis complicated.” He seemed almost impressed.

“I’ve been reading these things for several years now.”

“Fi real? Wah get you interested in a dis?”

Liam considered it for a moment, then asked, “Did you used to go to S.J.C.?”

“Nah, but I have some friends deh.”

“You know of Father Hoffman?”

“Of course.”

It was a most peculiar story, Liam recalled, because his interest in esoteric science was all thanks to a priest. He was enrolled at a Jesuit high school known as St. John’s College, founded in the late nineteenth century. If a parent wanted a decent education for his child, private schools were the only option, as the public ones were an absolute mess. He appreciated some of his teachers, most notably his Biology teacher, but he despised his school for forcing him to attend Mass every Friday morning, because it was a tedious bore to him. He wished he could simply sleep through it, as that was what he used to do when he was younger; he was raised as Presbyterian, and used to lay his head in his mother’s lap and doze off soundly throughout the songs and the homilies, skipping the Sunday school sessions. His brain simply wasn’t wired for religion, he thought; he was too inquisitive and faultfinding for it.

There was however an old Jesuit priest, Father Hoffman, who lived in a retreat behind the school and hemmed in by the mangroves. Stories about him had been bruited throughout the school. They said he was fascinated with collecting things like coral and Mayan artefacts and old photographs, and had been doing so for many years to the point that he had accrued an invaluable treasure trove for himself. He had not too long ago donated some of his findings to the new museum on Gaol Lane.

Every so often you could see him trotting hurriedly around the campus on his spindly legs, with a permanent look on his face that evoked Liam’s suspicion that the old codger never actually knew where he was going.

One day, during lunch break, Liam had been sitting on the steps of the school chapel, as it was a placid haven from his unruly classmates. He was reading A Wrinkle in Time because his aunt in Louisiana had recommended it to him; it was the first book he had taken up on his own accord in three years.

And Father Hoffman had made the passing comment while engaged in another one of his characteristic rushes, “Ah, splendid book.”

Liam had been surprised. Father Hoffman rarely took notice of things, so he had felt privileged for receiving a comment from him. “You’ve read it?”

Father Hoffman had slowed his pace and turned around. “Yes, and Many Waters. It was one of the sequels. But it wasn’t nearly as good, I thought.”

“Is that the one where they travel back to Noah’s Ark?”

Father Hoffman had nodded, though his head had looked more like it was jouncing about on his thin neck.

“Really? I haven’t read it myself, but I thought someone like you would have liked that one.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because she presupposes that the whole Great Flood event really happened.” Liam in hindsight wasn’t sure why he said that; it was unusual for him to confront a priest. But perhaps he had his scepticism bottled up inside of him and needed to release it at such an inopportune time.

Father Hoffman shrugged. “That’s why it’s fiction. You don’t have to believe everything it tells you. Just focus on what you like about it.”

Liam would never have expected that response.

“So what do you like about it?”

He had flipped through the pages. “Uh, well, I liked her explanation about curving space for travel, that the shortest distance isn’t necessarily a straight line.”

Father Hoffman had puckered his lips and nodded. “Then there you go. You’re fond of physics. That’s good news, I’d think. Do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because so many people know about God, yet so few know about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.” And with that he had casually disappeared around the corner.

Later that day, Liam had looked up information on the uncertainty principle in his Britannica encyclopaedia. He knew thenceforth that physics would be his life’s vocation.

Liam related the anecdote to Toad, who presently looked like he was groping for words.

“What is it?”

“You know of dat theory by dat scientist wid di hair?”

“Einstein?”

“Yea, dat deh one.” His yellowish eyes stared at Liam stalwartly. “Think you could explain it to me?”

Liam was amazed, but his eyes couldn’t help but brighten. “I suppose I could try, but I need to be getting home.”

“I’ll walk wid you.” And he hopped down to get his bicycle, which seemed too small for him.

And Liam had thus been placed in a situation he could never have foreseen. As the two walked down Princess Margaret Drive, past the telephone company and the municipal airport, and past the corpse of an iguana on a tree branch that had been taking a stubbornly long time to decompose, Liam attempted to explain to Toad concepts such as the curvature of space-time and the absoluteness of the imposing light barrier. It wasn’t that Toad was necessarily a horrible listener, but rather Liam was far worse at lecturing than he thought he would be when he had at last decided to take it seriously. He stuttered and fumbled words and repeated himself too frequently. Nevertheless, they flowed out of him as if he were disburdening himself of them. He even strayed off into tangents, talking about how scientists speculated the universe would die billions upon billions of years from now, which had become his favourite subject to ruminate on as of late.

“It all depends on how much weight the universe has to it, how much gravity attracts everything it holds. Either the universe will expand forever or eventually stop and crush in on itself until it has the size and volume of nothing, really. Either way is a bit disheartening.” And internally he would call himself on the fact that he accidentally used the word gravity instead of gravitation because gravity was commonly understood to be geocentric, whereas the latter applied in all reference points. And on and on his discursions went.

In the meantime Toad had not expressed a single comment. He unconsciously nodded at everything while looking down at the sidewalk, occasionally glancing at the boy. Had Liam been sufficiently observant, he would have noticed that these glances betrayed not an iota of concern for his words, but was rather marvelling him like a biologist having discovered a new species, permitting him to ramble on as he pleased while staying at the removed distance of an observer because it was all so titillating to his curiosity. How alien was this boy, he must have thought, yet he claimed he’s a Belizean by birth.

At length he had interjected, “Why you still in dis country?” to which Liam had responded with only a mild laugh.

Liam was just primed to return to their original topic of discussion and delve into the equivalency of mass and energy, but they had arrived at his front gate in only fifteen minutes. Despite being constrained to stop his lecture abruptly, he considered it a quarter of an hour well spent.

A group of shirtless boys came walking down the street, wearing swimming trunks and carrying bodyboards. A ramshackle pier was just around the corner. Liam himself never swam in the sea even though he lived right next to it; he lived too close to mouth of the Haulover Creek that churned up mud and sediment and tinged the water brown right along the coast. The water here never looked as attractive as the picturesque limpid turquoise of the cayes. As he thought of it, he couldn’t remember the last he time he paid a visit to the cayes and its beaches, not to mention the rainforests and nature reserves, the Mayan ruins like Xunantunich or Altun Ha, Chaa Creek to go canoeing, Banana Bank to go horseback riding, Pine Ridge to see the lay of the mountains. His life had been so much more active and adventurous before high school.

Just before he was about to mount his bicycle, Toad started because a tiny ball of fur bolted towards him and connected with the gate with a flurry of shrill barks that would unnerve any man who couldn’t find an inkling of amusement in the animal’s appearance. He looked at the dog uneasily.

“He’s aggressive,” said Liam, “but he doesn’t bite.”

Toad lurched forward and stomped his foot loudly to scare the dog away.

“Hey, don’t do that.”

“I no like dogs,” said Toad. Many Belizeans harboured an inexplicable fear of them, no matter what size they were.

“I see.” In this respect Liam concluded that they were diametrically different.

Toad seemed ready to push off on his rusted bicycle. “So you never answer mi question.”

“Pardon?”

“Why someone smart like you still in a Belize?”

“My dad wants me to go to a college in the States after I graduate this summer. Can’t think of anywhere to go, honestly. Plus it can only happen if I get a scholarship. Otherwise I doubt it could be afforded.” His eyes swept down the street to the seawall. It was a clear day, and he could see the straggling mangrove islets from afar. He could hear the playful shouts of the boys; the sea was calm and gleaming under the sweltering summer sun, and suddenly the water looked bluer, more inviting, more refreshing. Belize was a torrid place; cold for a couple weeks in January if that, and even then it was only chilly enough for Liam to need to wear a long-sleeved denim shirt. That was advantageous to him, as after a few tarries with his family in England he noticed that he’d shudder at any weather colder than 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The last place he would want to go was to another one of those accursed temperate zones, especially if he’d have to spend at least four years there. “I don’t think I’d want to leave.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d get awfully homesick.”

“Of Belize?” Toad laughed as if it were ludicrous to think that.

“I’d miss my dog,” Liam said, half-jokingly.

Toad scoffed and rode off. “Talk to ya lata, bwoy. Mek we meet at the stadium again sometime.”

“Lata.” There he goes again, he thought – Creole slipping off his tongue against his will.

But as he looked at Schrodinger, who in fear had hidden in the dugout beneath the flamboyant tree, which recently burgeoned with a vivid red-orange, and smiled when he saw his little wrinkled muzzle flaked with soil, Liam realized that his words were truer than he had intended them to be.