Joel did that alone. Those other kids, what did they know about feelings? Or teachers, what do they know? Or mothers? Or mirrors? His mother sighed a lot and shook her head and shrugged her back up, but what did Mrs. Beck know? I'm a fugitive, that's what. And he was right-Joel was a fugitive to his age; a hostage to his own hostile emotions.

So to get even with himself for feeling unfair to himself, he broke the mirror. Old mirror. Old room. Old feelings. Old Joel.

He sat toeing the glass with his shoe, squeezing his eyes narrow and making up shapes to fit the images he saw on broken glass. Not any silly everafter images. His images, a boy 14's images. An explorer in the jungle of his own thoughts, Joel hunted down the vanishing, frail butterfly of his youth; the strange bright passages of being 14; and the timid yet terrible, faceless, nameless mystery of his future. He'd asked the mirror, but the mirror didn't know-so he broke it and stared at the pieces, dreaming. Besides, he knew his old face. He knew it was only a mask to keep him from seeing the new face God was making for him. Making out of what? Why, out of the snips and snaps of his soul. What is a soul?

Questions and no answers? What is God? I am Joel. Joel Beck. 14. Who is God? How old is God? Is God Jesus? Joel was very unhappy. He read books. He stared hard at people's faces; trying to construct a mind-picture of his own; the faces stared back, that was all. Time whirled and Joel wondered; in all the world, his world, only a few lines of poetry touched him.

"I have been silenced by necessity,

I like to talk, I am a poet:

Silence is a harsh companion, I think she is a woman;

I am married to my solitude."

Poetry, now, that was real. But the realness of words was not like the realness of feeling. Feelings mattered, words only pretended to matter; emotions were mostly word-worlds that swept over you without speaking.

"I am married to my solitude"-

Joel was very unhappy.

But he dreamed longer than he should have, and was late for school. Mrs. Beck called out her last-time-I'm-warning-you; Joel hollered his usual Indian reply; imitated her answer to that under his breath; stayed in his room for their traditional one minute of separate silences; and then went to school. He smiled, his mother always missed him when she hit at him going out. Mrs. Beck smiled, some day I'm going to whack him one he won't forget. They both smiled, it was an old game; her's was an unlikely prophecy-Joel was right, feelings mattered. Mrs. Beck loved her boy. He was all she had. Now.

On his way to class, Joel thought about the mirror: would he get a new one? He wanted a new one, he wanted a new face. It was time someone or something took notice, he was 14. It was time; old mirrors are for remembering old, new mirrors are for dreaming new. It was time-

JOEL BECK

Something happened to Joel. In the locker room after gym. Someone made it happen. Joel lingered while dressing; imagination was a child with sticky fingers, dabbling his soul. He was sure he had a soul, only not so sure what a soul was. Is.