He had his doubts about Crake’s honourableness, intellectual or otherwise. He knew a bit more about Crake than his mother did.

When Jimmy’s mother took off like that, after the rampage with the hammer, Crake didn’t say much. He didn’t seem surprised or shocked. All he said was that some people needed to change, and to change they needed to be elsewhere. He said a person could be in your life and then not in it any more. He said Jimmy should read up on the Stoics. That last part was mildly aggravating: Crake could be a little too instructive sometimes, and a little too free with the shoulds. But Jimmy appreciated his calmness and lack of nosiness.

Of course Crake wasn’t Crake yet, at that time: his name was Glenn. Why did it have two n’s instead of the usual spelling? “My dad liked music,” was Crake’s explanation, once Jimmy got around to asking him about it, which had taken a while. “He named me after a dead pianist, some boy genius with two n’s.”

“So did he make you take music lessons?”

“No,” said Crake. “He never made me do much of anything.”

“Then what was the point?

“Of what?”

“Of your name. The two n’s.”

“Jimmy, Jimmy,” said Crake. “Not everything has a point.”

Snowman has trouble thinking of Crake as Glenn, so thoroughly has Crake’s later persona blotted out his earlier one. The Crake side of him must have been there from the beginning, thinks Snowman: there was never any real Glenn, Glenn was only a disguise. So in Snowman’s reruns of the story, Crake is never Glenn, and never Glenn-alias-Crake or Crake/Glenn, or Glenn, later Crake. He is always just Crake, pure and simple.

Anyway Crake saves time, thinks Snowman. Why hyphenate, why parenthesize, unless absolutely necessary?

Crake turned up at HelthWyzer High in September or October, one of those months that used to be called autumn. It was a bright warm sunny day, otherwise undistinguished. He was a transfer, the result of some headhunt involving a parental unit: these were frequent among the Compounds. Kids came and went, desks filled and emptied, friendship was always contingent.

Jimmy wasn’t paying much attention when Crake was introduced to the class by Melons Riley, their Hoodroom and Ultratexts teacher. Her name wasn’t Melons—that was a nickname used among the boys in the class—but Snowman can’t remember her real name. She shouldn’t have bent down so closely over his Read-A-Screen, her large round breasts almost touching his shoulder. She shouldn’t have worn her NooSkins T-shirt tucked so tightly into her zipleg shorts: it was too distracting. So that when Melons announced that Jimmy would be showing their new classmate Glenn around the school, there was a pause while Jimmy scrambled to decipher what it was she’d just said.

“Jimmy, I made a request,” said Melons.

“Sure, anything,” said Jimmy, rolling his eyes and leering, but not taking it too far. There was some class laughter; even Ms. Riley gave him a remote, unwilling smile. He could usually get round her with his boyish-charm act. He liked to imagine that if he hadn’t been a minor, and she his teacher and subject to abuse charges, she’d have been gnawing her way through his bedroom walls to sink her avid fingers into his youthful flesh.

Jimmy had been full of himself back then, thinks Snowman with indulgence and a little envy. He’d been unhappy too, of course. It went without saying, his unhappiness. He’d put a lot of energy into it.

When Jimmy got around to focusing on Crake, he wasn’t too cheered. Crake was taller than Jimmy, about two inches; thinner too. Straight brown-black hair, tanned skin, green eyes, a half-smile, a cool gaze. His clothes were dark in tone, devoid of logos and visuals and written commentary—a no-name look. He was possibly older than the rest of them, or trying to act it. Jimmy wondered what kinds of sports he played. Not football, nothing too brawny. Not tall enough for basketball. He didn’t strike Jimmy as a team player, or one who would stupidly court injury. Tennis, maybe. (Jimmy himself played tennis.)

At lunch hour Jimmy collected Crake and the two of them grabbed some food—Crake put down two giant soy-sausage dogs and a big slab of coconut-style layer cake, so maybe he was trying to bulk up—and then they trudged up and down the halls and in and out of the classrooms and labs, with Jimmy giving the running commentary. Here’s the gym, here’s the library, those are the readers, you have to sign up for them before noon, in there’s the girls’ shower room, there’s supposed to be a hole drilled through the wall but I’ve never found it. If you want to smoke dope don’t use the can, they’ve got it bugged; there’s a microlens for Security in that air vent, don’t stare at it or they’ll know you know.

Crake looked at everything, said nothing. He volunteered no information about himself. The only comment he made was that the Chemlab was a dump.

Well stuff it, Jimmy thought. If he wants to be an asshole it’s a free country. Millions before him have made the same life choice. He was annoyed with himself for jabbering and capering, while Crake gave him brief, indifferent glances, and that one-sided demi-smile. Nevertheless there was something about Crake. That kind of cool slouchiness always impressed Jimmy, coming from another guy: it was the sense of energies being held back, held in reserve for something more important than present company.

Jimmy found himself wishing to make a dent in Crake, get a reaction; it was one of his weaknesses, to care what other people thought of him. So after school he asked Crake if he’d like to go to one of the malls, hang out, see the sights, maybe there would be some girls there, and Crake said why not. There wasn’t much else to do after school in the HelthWyzer Compound, or in any of the Compounds, not for kids their age, not in any sort of group way. It wasn’t like the pleeblands. There, it was rumoured, the kids ran in packs, in hordes. They’d wait until some parent was away, then get right down to business—they’d swarm the place, waste themselves with loud music and toking and boozing, fuck everything including the family cat, trash the furniture, shoot up, overdose. Glamorous, thought Jimmy. But in the Compounds the lid was screwed down tight. Night patrols, curfews for growing minds, sniffer dogs after hard drugs. Once, they’d loosened up, let in a real band—The Pleebland Dirtballs, it had been—but there’d been a quasi-riot, so no repeats. No need to apologize to Crake, though. He was a Compound brat himself, he’d know the score.

Jimmy was hoping he might catch a glimpse of Wakulla Price, at the mall; he was still sort of in love with her, but after the I-value-you-as-my-friend speech she’d ruined him with, he’d tried one girl and then another, ending up—currently—with blonde LyndaLee. LyndaLee was on the rowing team and had muscular thighs and impressive pecs, and had smuggled him up to her bedroom on more than one occasion. She had a foul mouth and more experience than Jimmy, and every time he went with her he felt as if he’d been sucked into a Pachinko machine, all flashing lights and random tumbling and cascades of ball bearings. He didn’t like her much, but he needed to keep up with her, make sure he was still on her list. Maybe he could get Crake into the queue—do him a favour, build up some gratitude equity. He wondered what kind of girls Crake preferred. So far there’d been zero signals.

At the mall there was no Wakulla to be seen, and no Lynda-Lee. Jimmy tried calling LyndaLee, but her cellphone was off. So Jimmy and Crake played a few games of Three-Dimensional Waco in the arcade and had a couple of SoyOBoyburgers—no beef that month, said the chalkboard menu—and an iced Happicuppuchino, and half a Joltbar each to top up their energy and mainline a few steroids. Then they ambled down the enclosed hallway with its fountains and plastic ferns, through the warm-bathwater music they always played in there. Crake was not exactly voluble, and Jimmy was about to say he had to go do his homework, when up ahead there was a noteworthy sight: it was Melons Riley with a man, heading towards one of the adults-only dance clubs. She’d changed out of her school clothes and had on a loose red jacket over a tight black dress, and the man had his arm around her waist, inside the jacket.