I am taking a class of some sort, at school, either high school or college. There are only a few of us in this class, & we’re sitting together at a picnic table on the school grounds with our professor. Our assignment is this challenge: Take 4 complimentary statements about the queen of England that are written of 4 separate pieces of paper, then rearrange the papers, using the edges to cover up specific letters / words on one another, to create a single derogatory statement that insults the queen of England.

Later, that night, I’m at a different picnic table with a different group of people but the same professor. These are the professor’s favorites—all boys.

(One of them is sitting on another’s lap, & they’re sharing one pair of hands—that is, the guy on the bottom puts his arms under the armpits of the guy on top, & does everything for them both—use utensils, brush hair from their eyes, pass a book, whatever—while the guy on top hides his own hands behind his back.)

At this table there is a lot of talk about quitting drugs, & quitting crime. They talk about how to avoid authorities, & to be on the lookout for them. I am confused, & think about how I might get a ride home from the professor.

Then the professor & all the boys perform a ritual, & I’m not sure why, but I get the feeling it’s some sort of luck ritual intended to help keep the police at bay. They wear tiny plastic Jesus masks. The masks are too small & sit oddly on their faces. They pass around small plastic objects that look like toys, but are treated with great reverence. I tell the group that I can’t look at them or I’ll laugh.

Then I notice my backpack is beside the door at the bottom of the stairs, some 40 feet away. I remember that it contains a ‘secret document.’ The document is stolen. I can see it in my mind’s eye: a teenage Chinese girl photocopying it in an office, then waving it in a guard’s face with such flagrancy that he assumes there’s no way it can be important, let alone a ‘secret document’ (ha!) I remember that I must protect & hide the document, & scold myself for leaving my backpack on the ground like that.