Tuesday, 9:45 a.m. PST

DOUGIE WAS OUT IN THE WOODS. Dougie was always out in the woods. He didn’t mind the rain, the wind, the cold. Outside was good. Outside meant trees and pine needles and green moss that felt nice to the touch, but didn’t always taste so good. This morning, he’d tried three different shades of moss. One had tasted like dirt. One had tasted like tree bark. The third had made his mouth tingle curiously.

He hadn’t eaten any more of the third.

Now, Dougie was excavating the remains of a dead tree. The thick trunk had fallen probably ages ago, at least before Dougie had been born. Now it was a great, big rotted-out log, sprouting interesting fungus and housing loads of bugs. Dougie had a stick. He was digging, digging, digging. The more he dug, the more interesting bugs ran out.

Dougie was seven. At least that’s what people told him. He didn’t remember his birthday. Maybe sometime in February. His first “second family” had made up a date for him, his “homecoming day.” That had been in February, and they’d fed him cake and ice cream.

His first second family had been okay. At least he couldn’t remember anything bad. But one day the lady in the purple suit had arrived and told him to pack his bag. He was going to a new second family, but don’t worry, they would love him lots, too.

“Dougie,” the lady in the purple suit had told him quietly when they were out the front door, “you can’t play with matches like that; it makes people nervous. Promise me, no more matches.”

Dougie had shrugged. Dougie had promised. While behind them, the garage of his first second family’s home lay in smoldering ruins.

The second second family hadn’t celebrated birthdays or “homecoming days.” They hadn’t celebrated much of anything. His new mom had a thin, stern face. “Idle hands are the devil’s playmate,” she’d tell him, right before ordering him to scrub the floor or scour the dishes.

Dougie didn’t like doing chores. That meant being in a house and Dougie didn’t like being inside. He wanted to be outside. In the trees. Where he could smell the dirt and leaves. Where there was no one around to look at him funny or whisper about him behind his back.

He’d made it three weeks with his second second family. Then he’d simply waited until they went to sleep, went out to the fireplace, and had a ball with the great big long matches. Those suckers could burn.

He still remembered the shocked look on his new mama’s face when she came tearing out of her bedroom. “Do I smell smoke? Oh my God, is that a fire? Dougie! What have you done, you evil devil’s spawn! ”

His second second mom slept in the nude. So did his second second dad. The fire people had giggled about that when they’d arrived at the scene. Then they’d seen him, sitting up in the branches of the giant oak tree, listening to the house snap, crackle, pop. They’d stopped, pointed, and stared.

He’d gone to a boys’ home after that. A center for “troubled youths,” they’d told him. But the lady in the purple suit had appeared again. Dougie was too young for such a facility, he’d heard her say. Dougie still had a chance.

Dougie didn’t know what that meant. He simply packed his bag and trotted along to the next home. This house had been near the town. No woods, no park, not even a decent yard. Dougie had discovered only one perk in this tiny house, overrun by all sorts of new brothers and sisters, who weren’t brothers and sisters at all, but just other kids who hated one another: The house was only a block from the convenience store.

Dougie learned to steal. If they were going to keep all the matches out of his reach, stealing was second best. He started out small. Twinkies, doughnuts, the little penny candies they kept down near the floor. The kind of stuff no one really noticed. The first time, he brought his loot home, and one of his “sisters” took it from him. When he complained, she socked him in the eye. Then she sat there and ate all his candy while his eye swelled shut.

Dougie learned his lesson. He found a loose brick in the back of the gas station, and that’s where he stashed his loot. It was good to have your own supply of food, you know. Sometimes, just looking at all the stuff, he would feel his tummy rumble. There was hunger and there was hunger, and already Dougie understood that he was hungrier than most.

The store owner caught him one day, his pockets bulging with Ho Hos and apple pies. The owner had twisted his ear. Dougie had cried and surrendered the goods. “I’ll never do it again,” he promised, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. More candy fell out of his coat sleeve.

And that was it for home number three.

The lady in the purple suit decided Dougie needed more attention. A home with that many kids hadn’t been the right kind of home for Dougie. He needed a hands-on approach. Maybe with a Positive Male Role Model.

Dougie went to home number four, where he was excitedly introduced to his ten-year-old “big brother,” Derek. Derek was in Boy Scouts, Derek played Pop Warner football, Derek was a “great kid” and he’d be a good influence on Dougie.

Derek had waited until the lights were out, then he’d taken Dougie all over the house.

“See that chair, little boy? That’s my chair.” Derek belted him in the stomach.

“See that ball, little boy? That’s my ball.” Three fingers to a kidney.

“See that Xbox? That’s my Xbox.” A karate chop across the neck.

Dougie had lasted longer at this house. Mostly because he was scared to leave his bed at night. But one day, Derek went to spend a weekend at his grandma’s house. Dougie got up promptly at one a.m. He started in the bedroom. Peeling the sheets off Derek’s bed, pulling the clothes from Derek’s drawers, dragging the toys out of Derek’s closet. He took the chair. The ball. The Xbox.

He built one helluva pile in the front yard. And then, being more experienced now, he found the gas can and started spraying. One little light and whoosh !

Dougie lost both eyebrows and most of his bangs. He was also summarily whisked off the premises by the lady in the purple suit, who was having a hard time yelling at a child who looked perpetually surprised with all the hair seared from his face.

Dougie had been in BIG TROUBLE.

This was going in his FILE. No one would touch him now. Didn’t he want a FAMILY? Didn’t he want a CHANCE? How COULD he?

He could because he did and he would again. He knew that. The lady in purple knew that. Dougie liked fire. He liked the fiery spark of a match. He liked the way the flame gobbled up the little paper stick, then licked at his fingertips. It hurt. He’d seared his fingertips countless times, even blistered the palm of his hand. Fire hurt. But it wasn’t a bad sort of pain. It was real. It was honest. It was fire.

Dougie liked it.

And now, here he was. Living with the Carpenters. Good people, the lady in the purple suit had told him. Honest, hardworking. They’d specifically asked for a problem child (“Heaven help them,” the woman in the purple suit had murmured), so maybe they would know what to do with him. His new second father, Stanley, was reported to be very good with boys. Assistant football coach at the high school. Grew up with four brothers himself.

Maybe he would be the one to finally take Dougie in hand.

Dougie’s new bedroom in his fifth second home contained only a mattress. If he wanted sheets, Dougie was informed, he had to earn them. If he wanted blankets, he had to earn them. If he wanted toys, ditto.

The wall in the kitchen contained an elaborate chart. Perform a chore, score a point. Ask for something politely, score a point. Do as he was told, score a point.

Curse, lose a point. Talk back, lose a point. Break a rule, lose a point. So on and so forth.

His new parents weren’t taking any chances either. No matches, no gasoline, no lighter fluid anywhere on the property. ’Least, not that Dougie had been able to find. ’Course, his searching time was limited. Every evening, come seven p.m., he was escorted to his room and locked in.

First night, he got up at three a.m. and peed in the closet. In the morning, Stanley had simply handed him a sponge and escorted him back to his room.

“You can use the sponge, or you can use your tongue, but you will clean that up, Dougie. Now get busy.”

Stanley had stood there the entire time, big, muscley arms crossed over a big, muscley chest. Dougie had cleaned. At least the next night they left him a bucket.

Dougie waited till midnight, then flipped over the bucket and used it to climb up to the window. His new “role model” dad had already nailed it shut.

Stanley was a thinker. So, however, was Dougie.

Dougie invested a whole three days into his next project. Yes, ma’am, I’ll do the dishes. Yes, ma’am, I’ll eat carrots. Yes, ma’am, I’ll brush my teeth. In return, he gained a sheet and the small art kit that he’d specifically requested.

Night five, he was standing on his bucket, using a pen cap from the art kit to slowly and methodically wiggle out each nail. Took him until four a.m., but he got it. And then, for two whole weeks he could come and go as he pleased. They locked Dougie in his room, and quick as a wink, he was gone again, heading for the woods, or slogging into town in search of matches. Third week, however, Stanley caught him.

Turned out his new second dad knew a lot more about punishment than Dougie did.

The lady in the purple suit had visited shortly thereafter.

“Dougie,” she’d said, “don’t you realize this is your last chance?”

She had looked like she was going to cry. Her eyes had welled up. Her lower lip had trembled. It brought back a hazy memory to Dougie. Of a time and place he didn’t really remember. It was just a sensation in his mind, like a smell, or the feel of the wind on his face.

He had wanted to go to the lady. He had wanted to curl up against her, press his face against her neck, the way he had seen other children do. He had wanted her to hug him, to tell him that everything would be all right. He had wanted her to love him.

And that had made him stare at the purple suit and wonder how it would burn.

“Stanley beats me,” Dougie said.

And that changed everything.

The lady in the purple suit brought him another lady, who wore jeans. Her name was Rainie and she was his advocate. That meant she worked for him, she told him. It was her job to assess what was going on, to determine if there really were issues in the household. If so, she would help him defend his rights. If not, she was supposed to help mediate a solution between him and his new foster parents, who, according to her, weren’t ready to give up on him just yet, even though Dougie needed, in the words of Stanley, a “massive attitude adjustment.”