Anika - "Yang Yang". Most Thursday nights, while Yang is at soccer practice, his parents drive to the Tim Hortons on the corner and have their weekly Yang Symposium. The name started out as a joke - "It's like we're having a secret symposium," Han quipped - but then it stuck. Because it is like they are having a secret symposium. They have to. The rest of the time, when Yang is not at soccer practice, his parents are frightened. Yang listens to them. He listens to them with an eerie focus. As they stand in the kitchen, doing the dishes, Yang is almost motionless in the den. He is playing Nintendo but he is almost motionless. Sometimes Sue comes out of their bedroom and Yang is in the hallway, unmoving, staring at her with almond-coloured eyes. "Hello mother," he says. It has already been a few years since Han and Sue realized Yang is smarter than they are. Also, he seems malevolent. So they have their symposiums. "Have you figured out what he's up to?" his father asks. His mother takes a bite of an apple dutchy. "Do you think we need to kill him?" [buy]

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