Nate can hear the wee-woo wee-woo of a police siren even as they’re leaving everything in a blur. Cars are slipping behind as the Ninja overtakes them. Concrete barriers are whipping by. Beyond them, on the counterflow lane, cars are disappearing twice faster. Nate has always been at home with the deafening roar of the race track, but the snatches of police dispatches have started to make him feel claustrophobic, as though the police are already one step ahead of them and tightening the cordon around them like a noose. {Your heart’s beating twice the expected rate,} Ecto tells him. {Please don’t be alarmed. The police are mainly backup. Think of them as cavalry for apprehending the Boogeyman. Not you and Katey. We can’t leave anything to chance and let the Boogeyman escape our net.} {As soon as we reach the hotel, tell Katey to run to the underground parking through the exit ramp. Francine is currently unconscious in the blacked-out van of the Boogeyman. The Mockingjay is stalling hi

November 1 and 2 are All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day respectively, which means no school. Filipinos troop to the cemeteries to light candles and lay down flowers at the gravestones of their ancestors and lost loved ones. Because Kate is alienated from her grandparents, uncles, aunts and any and all potential cousins, on both her pa’s and ma’s sides, she usually spends Allhallowtide in Lor’s family’s nook of Concepcion Municipal Cemetery. Kate’s parents, meanwhile, only light candles at home for all their unspecified and nameless relatives. Fortunately, the Maliksis have already made peace with Lor’s unexpected pregnancy and transformed into excited grandparents; albeit still hostile future in-laws to JM. Kate hasn’t lost the slot on her calendar to spill tea with her bestie. Especially now with their irregular Skype calls, a hangout is long overdue. And because Nate was supposed to spend the holidays alone in his dorm room (and confessed to being afraid of ghosts), Kate let him ta

On Monday, November 4, Kate rides the jeepney at 6:45 AM to try and make it to the semiweekly flag-raising ceremony. She left home with her hair wet from the shower. In the local vernacular, she’s said to be “chased by the comb”. In the Philippines, almost everybody takes a shower in the morning. Few own a hairdryer and everybody looks to the speeding, smoke-belching and breezy jeepneys – the ubiquitous public transport – to be their personal giant electric fan. Kate gets off across from campus and takes the pedestrian overpass. On the other side, she joins the growing mass of hurrying and already late students. They go through the sole knife arch and the security check wands, which are ineluctable in public places. Just as she’s been dreading, the national anthem starts playing while she’s scurrying down the covered walk. She, just like the other late students, has to freeze in her tracks and put her right palm on her left chest. First period’s P.E. so Kate goes straight to the

“I think I can imagine how you feel, Mrs. Lapuz,” Nate says softly. “Everybody thinks I’m this perfect, well-put-together idol but, to tell the truth, I don’t have a very good relationship with my mom. And I never knew what I’d been missing till I met Kate. “The love and care that you gave Kate when you were raising her, it shaped her into the kind of person she is. At first, she was a painful reminder to me that my family wasn’t normal, that I was the product of a broken marriage. But it’s not all bad. It’s just… well… life. Also, messed-up kids such as myself are very perceptive, and I could glean a couple of things about grownups through my experiences. “Parenthood changes a person. While teenagers see themselves at the center of the universe, a mother would put herself second and her child first. My biological father was also a conflicted parent but to extremes. He had a dream and he chased it unrelentingly, up until he hit the ultimate wall. That wall was when a Korean woman got

On Tuesday, they have the same brain-hurting and nose-bleeding calculations in Physics and Chemistry. The only thing different is DMG’s closed-door rehearsal at the chapel-slash-auditorium 500 meters east. Nate has been exempted by Principal Aguilar personally from any school work or quiz. The whole campus is abuzz and on edge at every sighting of truck and van with tinted windows down Campus Drive and onwards to the auditorium. Kate has also prepared paper lots in an empty pencil case for the Secret Santa next month. She lets every Everester pick their recipient, including her own name. Kate has set the budget at “No Fixed Price” because she knows not all students are financially comfortable. When only two pieces of folded paper remain (one for Nate and one for her), she picks her recipient and is both excited and nervous to see that it’s Grace. She keeps the last piece of paper, of course unopened, for Nate. {Huh,} she thinks to herself afterwards. {What gift can I give somebod