One day, I was invited over to Jack Kang's house. I was to arrive there after dinner. It was during a day in which I had gone through a particularly stressful simulation, as well as an all-too-honest game of Truth.

But, after I ate my white noodles with pepper, I walked out of the Merciless Mart and towards Jack's house in the Candor neighborhood. All the way there, I wondered why he would invite me of all people over. Seriously, it's not like we were formally acquainted, anyway. Maybe I'd done something extremely unCandorish, and was going to be threatened with factionlessness, or worse, public pantsing.

Anyway, upon arriving there, he friendlily welcomed me into the parlor. Seating me upon the davenport, he asked if I would like some tea. Feeling a bit sick from the peppered noodles, I asked if he had any chamomile, which he replied in the affirmative.

After fetching the tea, he sat down in an armchair.

"So," he said, grinning quirkily, "you're the Lennon I heard about. Lennon Kang. You may be wondering why I invited you over."

"Of course I'm wondering," I answered. "I mean, I don't seem like the sort you would ask to go fly fishing or cow tipping with."

He laughed.

"Lennon," he said, "what are your parents' names?"

I answered, "Harry and Fannie Kang. Why?"

These didn't seem the sort of questions one would ask a guest upon first arriving.

"Harry Kang is my brother," Jack said.

I was quiet for a moment.

I then asked, "So, you're my uncle?"

Jack laughed again, but this time in a somewhat nervous manner.

"No, Lennon," he said. "It's a long story. You see, your dad wasn't the best of husbands to your mom."

Which would explain her utter subservience. I should have figured out by now that her quietness wasn't natural.

"So she often would look towards other men for help, to back her up when your dad was acting cruelly towards her."

Logical enough. Men oftentimes give in to peer pressure from other men.

"Eventually, she found out he had a brother, which was me. She wanted me to speak to him, knowing that I would be brutally honest, and knowing that he had somewhat of a soft spot for relatives, despite the 'faction before blood rule'."

Cool story. When's the climax?

"After a while, she and I started to get interested in each other. We would meet together, and have dinner and go to the park together. When it got truly over the deep end, though, we ended up copulating. That's when I decided it was not right to be in a relationship with my sister-in-law. Therefore, I cut off all contact with her."

That's awkward. I never realized there was so much sin going on in my family. Still, it's not surprising. They never were the most honest bunch.

"Last week, though, she called me up on the telephone. She told me about our child. She knew all along it was mine, because her husband had been working the past couple of months on a farming project and was to busy to spend time with her. When she told me… I felt shocked. I was angry that she'd never told me before, and that I'd lost sixteen years to raise… my son."

I felt a shiver go down me. Wait? Does this mean…

"Lennon… You're my son."

Jack smiled sadly, but with a look of contentment.

"I'm so sorry. I wish I had known. If I'd been there for you, I could have… But the past is in the past. I'll give you time to think about it. I know I had to take a few days to think about being a father."

Since he'd started telling the story, I hadn't spoken.

Finally, I said, "Jack, I don't know what to say. This is quite a surprise, and I don't know whether I am happy or disturbed."

"You don't have to be happy," Jack said. "I would understand if you were angry."

"No," I said. "I'm not angry, at least not yet. Did you seriously not learn about this until last week?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"If you didn't learn it till now," he said, "it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that I also learned it so recently."

Leading out of the parlor we were sitting in was a flight of stairs. Walking down the flight of stairs was Peter. He looked surprised, and in some state of wonder, to see me there.

"Oh, um…" he started to say. "Hey, Lennon. What're you doing here?"

"Apparently," I said, "I have family here in Candor."

"Really?" Peter looked confused, as if he was trying to remember something. Finally it dawned on him. "Oh, I now recall! Jack was telling me about that…"

I looked at the clock over the armchair.

"I must get going," I said. "It will be dark out soon, and I don't want to be caught by the thieves or the muggers or the murderers…"

"Thank you for visiting," Jack said. "I hope the information wasn't too much."

I tried to smile. I know it must have been awkward for Jack, but it felt like my whole little world had been turned around and shaken beneath my feet. I wasn't sure I wanted to accept him as my father, after finding it so hard for so long to accept the man who raised me back in Amity.

"Don't worry," I said. "You did the honest thing. Be happy that you finally learned the truth. I wish my mother hadn't been so secretive, but… she never seemed like a happy woman, anyway. Unhappy people tend to keep many secrets."

I left Jack Kang's house. As I walked towards the Merciless Mart, though, I heard someone calling my name. I turned around to see Peter running towards me.

"Can I walk with you to the Mart?" he asked.

"Why not?" I answered. "Are you meeting up with friends there?"

Peter shrugged. He looked at me, as if I was a strange and exotic creature. Maybe this is what it feels like to live in the zoo, being stared at and viewed as different. Still, there was something tender about his gazing.

He nervously tried to make conversation.

"So," he said, "you… like the food here?"

I laughed.

"Goodness, Pete," I said. "The food's just as okay as in any other place."

"Pete?" he stared some more. "I like that."

"Then I guess I can call you that. It'll be my nickname for you. I always thought it wasn't a very elegant name, but there's something different about it when I call you that."

"Pete… I like being called Pete…"

"Elizabeth has told me a lot about you."

Peter scowled at this, and looked seriously upset.

"What?" I asked. I expected a Candor boy would be used to criticism. Maybe, though, he just had hoped I wouldn't have heard any of it…

"It's just that… just that…" he started to say. "Oh, bother. Do they have to tell you everything?"

"The people here are just trying to be honest."

"I don't care. It's their fault I'm so hated."

"Maybe if you were simply nicer to people, they would like you more."

"Nah. They'll always hate me. No one will ever forgive me."

"It's that attitude that gets you to doing more and more bad things. You start thinking you have nothing to lose, when, in fact, you might have a few redeemable qualities left."

He looked at me with pitiful eyes.

"Do you really think I have redeemable qualities?" he asked.

"Don't give me that look. It feels extremely manipulative. And, yes, I bet you do have redeemable qualities."

He looked pensive for a moment.

Oh, dear. What's he going to say to me now? I had a feeling that he was wanting something. Why else would he be walking with me to the Merciless Mart? Anyone like him would only hang out and about with those who can give him something.

"I like your T-shirt."

It was my turn to stare at him.

"What?" I asked. "You like my T-shirt?"

"The black designs on the white background look cool. They look good on you."

"Wait… Are you starting to…?"

"No!"

He blushed beat red.

"Peter…"

"Call me Pete, please."

"No, Peter. I can't give you a nickname if it makes you feel special to me. You're obviously flirting, but you want to keep what's going on in your head on the down low."

He was quiet.

By then, we had reached the Merciless Mart. We both stopped before walking in.

"You know," I said, "you are the most dishonest Candorian I have ever seen. So far, within the past few weeks of being here, if I turned someone on, they told me. You, on the other hand, are trying to ease your way into telling the truth."

"It's not like that," he said, crossly. "I just… I just…"

"Are you scared I'll turn you down?"

"Um… Yes."

"Well, I hereby turn you down."

"W-why? Am I ugly?"

"It's not that. I mean, you're adorable in your own way. I just don't find you attractive in the sort of way you hope I do. Added to that, I really don't know or trust you well enough to get involved. And, more so added to that, I don't feel like it'd be morally right for me to get involved with another guy."

"What do morals have to do with it?"

"For me, everything. I use morals everyday, and it's helped keep me from turning into some crazy frog drowning in sin. I have a compass to guide me, thanks to morals. My morals may be different from other people's, but they still sure do help me."

Peter was looking down at his feet.

"I just though… you know…" He stuttered. "I-I w-w-was thinking… you l-liked m-m-me."

"Why?"

"Y-you were n-nice to m-m-me th-that one day."

"That's called being a nice person. You don't have to have the hots for someone to be nice to them."

I truly felt sorry for Peter. It must be hard to have your heart broken by somebody who'd given you hope in your forever lonely and single existence. Even more so, it must be hard not to understand when someone shows you the slightest bit of kindness, when someone treats you as a person rather than Cruella de Ville.

"Peter? Wanna go get ice cream?"

"Why? I assume you're gonna say this isn't a date."

"Of course it isn't a date. It's just two people getting dessert together. Come on. It'll be fun. I remember going to get dessert with my classmates back in Amity all the time."

Peter thought a little bit.

"Why not?" he said after a while.

Feeling my Amity side come out, I put my arm around his shoulders as we walked into the Merciless Mart.

"You know," I said, "I can never have too many friends. Also, you can be like the brother I never had."

"Or the lover you never had."

"Slow down, Don Juan. Let's just go get ice cream, and we can talk about plumbing or finger paints or something along the way. That's what folks talk about while getting ice cream, right?"

He laughed.

That night, right before going into the boys' section of the barracks, Elizabeth grabbed me by the arm.

"Why'd I see you hanging out with Peter?" she inquired ferociously.

"We were just getting ice cream," I said. "He wasn't leading me astray, like talking me into putting tacks on everyone's chairs, or beating up kids for their money, or anything like that."

Elizabeth gave me the stare of internal explication.

"You realize he really likes…"

"Yes," I answered. "He really likes being evil, and he really likes my farmer's tan. I really don't intend to pal around with him that much. Still, I'm bound to get to know him better, now that I've learned… certain things."

"Like what?" Alexandra walked up to where Elizabeth and I were talking.

"I learned that…" I didn't really want to say something so shocking and weird and personal, but that would be very unCandorish of me. "I learned this evening that Jack Kang is my biological father."

"That explains everything," Elizabeth said. "You both speak with a slight lisp."

"No, I do not!" I replied.

"Yes, you do," Alexandra answered, giggling. "It's not noticeable at all. It took me a while to notice it, and I notice everything." She then looked confused. "Peter likes Lennon's farmer's tan? What's that supposed to mean?"

Elizabeth held her head back and laughed out loud.

"You are such a sweet one, Ally," she said. "Sweet as honey…"

After talking about our love lives (or, lack thereof, to be more exact), I went into the guys' section of the barracks.

"This has been such a weird day," I said as I entered. "Anyone else have something strange to confess or proclaim to his fellow barrackmates?"

Rashad laughed.

"You're such a silly gooser," he said. "So much seems to discombobulate and fluster your feathers."

Sigurd said, "Well, you weren't so Zen yourself while confessing in front of the girls today your fancy secret."

I thought about how Rashad, during the game of Truth, had told the girls he was a monorchid. All of the guys knew it; shower time during our first day of initiation sure revealed that secret.

"Well, what about your secret?" Rashad gave Sigurd a sly and ornery smile.

Sigurd shivered, but chuckled.

I remembered how today, right after Rashad's confession, Sigurd had told everyone about how he prefers to keep his Kleenex right after blowing his nose. Up until that moment, I'd wondered what that box he kept under his bed was for.

"Speaking of secrets," Matthew said, "aren't we going into the city square tomorrow to publicly talk about our deep and personal beeswax?"

"I think so," I said. "Though, I don't see why anyone would care to hear us publicly confess when we stopped wetting our beds. It gives Candor a bad reputation as peace disturbers, I bet."

"My mother always complained when the Candor initiates would confess random information in the city square," Sigurd said. "She didn't enjoy hearing things she felt weren't her business."

"Well, tell her to prepare to be disappointed," Warner said. "It's going to happen sooner or later. Maybe she'll get to hear about what tastes I enjoy in food."

Warner's confession today during Truth was that he preferred the taste of rotting fruit to that of fresh fruit. Everyone grimaced, except Elizabeth, who was enamored with the idea of eating moldy tomatoes and grapes.

Matthew laughed.

"I remember," he said, "when I was very little, Beatrice convinced me to make a salad with her. Without really making them into smaller pieces, we just took leaves of lettuce off of the head, and put them in a bowl. There was still dirt on them. Then, we decided to put in the tomatoes. We couldn't reach the kitchen knives, though, so we decided to squish the tomatoes. These particular tomatoes were rotting, so juice squirted out of them and got all over our hands and shirts, though a lot of it made it into the salad. By then, we decided we were bored with making salad, so we went outside to play."

"Did you get in trouble?" Warner asked. "I sure remember getting punished plenty of times for eating rotting fruits and veggies."

"Beatrice's mom found the salad," Matthew replied. "She told us it was a very pretty salad, but it wasn't quite right for eating. She managed to save the lettuce leaves, though they tasted like they'd been marinated in tomato. Afterwards, she told us not to use the kitchen without a grown-up's supervision. Beatrice, apparently, didn't always listen to that, because she figured out how to make sandwiches for herself."

"Sandwiches are, like, the easiest thing to make," Sigurd said. "She wasn't some prodigy just because she stuck food inside of two slices of bread."

Matthew laughed.

"I guess you're right," he said.

Rashad muttered, "Peter really liked Beatrice."

"What?" I inquired.

"For a while," Rashad continued, "I would see him looking at her, a shellshocked look of wonder in his eyes. He would never admit, though, that he had a crush on a 'Stiff'."

"He barely admitted he had a crush on me," I said.

"Peter has a crush on you?!" Matthew looked shocked. I don't see why. It's not like he's unused to such concepts.

Warner said, "The reason we all remember his crush on Beatrice is that she was one of the few girls who caught his attention. He much prefers guys. That's one of the many ways he, to some extent, resembles Dorian Gray."

"In what other ways does he, to some extent, resemble Dorian Gray?" Matthew asked.

Warner thought.

He then said, "I bet he wouldn't object to killing someone."

That Beatrice girl, whoever she is, sure is fortunate that Peter no longer likes her. It's oftentimes the crush who turns the guy down who's the first to end up in a coffin.