"I don't know yet," Neva said.
She went home and made Hamburger Helper, and they ate it in front of the Series in the den, which they had never done before August. In the eighth inning, when the Cardinals went up by three, Boyce said, "Well, that's that," in a voice that had nothing to do with baseball.
Afterward, while Kristi was drying the dishes with the bad grace of a prisoner breaking rocks, Neva said, "Do you know a boy named Troy Breaux? Fifth grade?"
Kristi made a face. "He's the Camel."
"The what?"
"That's what they call him. The fifth graders. Because he doesn't eat." She put a plate in the cabinet with a clatter. "He doesn't go through the line. He just sits at the end of the fifth grade table with his library book. Stacy Wardlow's little brother said Troy told everybody he has a disease where he can only eat at home. And then some kid said, no, he's a camel, he stores it up in his hump. And now they all call him that. They make camel noises." She did one. It was quite good, and quite horrible. "It's mean. I don't do it."
"Since when?"
"Since school started, I guess. Except last week he started bringing a sack. Stacy's brother says he eats it in the bathroom." Kristi hung the dish towel on the oven door and looked at her mother for the first time with something other than contempt. "Why? How do you know him?"
"He comes in the cafe with his grandparents."