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No one could say why it was called Pine Ridge. Wasn’t any pines around that Chris could see. Just a group of one-story, L-shaped, red brick buildings set on a flat dirt-and-mud clearing, surrounded by a fence topped with razor wire. Beyond the fence, woods. Oak, maple, wild dogwood, and weed trees, but no pines. Somewhere back in those woods, the jail they had for girls.

The facility was situated on eight hundred acres out in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, twenty-five miles from Northwest D. C. , where Chris had grown up. At night, lying in his cell, he could hear planes coming in low. So he knew that they were near the Baltimore airport, and close to a highway, too. Some days, if the wind was right, playing basketball on the outdoor court or walking to the school building from his unit, he’d make out the hiss and rumble of vehicles speeding by, straights going off to work or heading back home, moms in their minivans, kids driving to parties or hookups. Teenagers like him, only free.

Of course, he had been told exactly where he was. The director of the district’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, the superintendent, the guards, his fellow inmates, his parents, and the lawyer his father had hired to represent him had explained it to him in detail. He’d even been shown a map. But it was more interesting for him to imagine that he was in some kind of mysterious location. They are sending me to a top secret place in the woods. A facility for boys they cannot control. A place that can’t hold me. I will now plan my daring escape, ha-ha.

“Chris?” said his mother.

“Huh?”

“Is something funny?”

“No. ”

“You’re grinning. ”

“Was I?”

“Chris, you seem to be treating all of this very lightly. ”

“I don’t mean to, Ma. I was thinkin on something, was all it was. ”

“You were thinking about something,” said his father.

Chris smiled, causing the muscles along his father’s jawline to tighten.

Chris Flynn was seated at a scarred wooden table in the Pine Ridge visiting room. Across the table were his parents, Thomas and Amanda Flynn. Nearby, several other boys, all wearing polo shirts and khakis, were being visited by their moms or grandmothers. A guard stood by the door. Outside the room, through a square of Plexiglas, Chris could see two other guards, talking to each other, laughing.

“How’s it going, honey?” said Amanda.

“It’s all right. ”

“How’s school?”

Chris glanced around the room. “I go. ”

“Look at your mother when she’s talking to you,” said Thomas Flynn.

Instead, Chris stared into his father’s watery eyes. He saw a husk of anger and hurt, and felt nothing.

“I’m asking you,” said Amanda, “are they treating you all right? Are people bullying you?”