Mouth looked at the wall separating his parents’ house from the Watanabe’s. Paul Watanabe was in the driveway, and he didn’t spare Mouth more than a glance. Mouth didn’t mind – whenever Paul looked at him, he’d end up staring, and Mouth wanted to be left alone.
            “Jeremy, come on inside. It’s time to feed,” Dad said, but Mouth didn’t want to move. He was deaf in his right ear, but he could hear fine from the left. He’d pretend to be all deaf, sometimes, and even people who knew he wasn’t would seem to believe it.
            “Jeremy, I have to get back to work. Come on.”
           Mouth blinked, though it was hard to tell from looking at him. He had extra flaps of skin covering most of his eyes, which obscured his eyelids.
           Dad stepped in front of Mouth and looked down at him with a queer caste in his eye – Mouth could never tell what Dad was thinking.
           Dad was handsome, as far as Mouth could tell. He had the cheekbones Mouth did not, his nose lay happily between and beneath his eyes – Mouth’s was thrust forward like opening fist inside his face.
           Dad couldn’t see his own jaw – Mouth could. Dad could speak. Dad didn’t have a plastic tube jammed into his neck to keep his body from suffocating him as he slept.
           Mouth liked Dad, but wasn’t sure the feeling was mutual.
           “C’mon, Mouth. I have to go.” Dad wouldn’t look Mouth in the eye.
           Mouth took one last look at the wall, wishing it were taller to block out the staring neighbors.
           Mouth didn’t go to school anymore. He went for one day this past September. He did not mind the ridicule or the stare, nor the way the young first-year teacher made a Herculean effort to let him know he was ‘special’. It was the first day essay. They were asked to evaluate their summer vacation – not just describe it, but rate it. Mouth wrote two sentences:
           “I breathe through a plastic tube, and if I try to swim I will drown. How was your summer?”
           He turned it in and walked out of class.
           There may have been official inquiries, but his parents never made him go back.[read on]