The town just hasn't been the same since Eric left. We don't really know where he went or why, but all we know is, the place is decadent without him. This was an incredible kid, you see. Eight years old, an inventor, a philosopher, a detective, simply a genius.

I know a few people, and I won't name names, who swear by the theory that Valerie was Eric's undoing. Yeah, yeah, I know, typical men, blaming it all on the ladies, but maybe there's some truth to the argument. When Eric was six, he helped the police find three escaped convicts. A year later, he anonymously published his first novel, Ah, Life, about the problems of German immigration in the early 1920s, replete with dark overtones of sexual distress.

When Valerie moved to town, though, he seemed to lose all of his focus. Before, he was wont to curl up with a classic novel, perhaps a Dickens or even a Vonnegut, but now, much of his reading time consisted of books of pop culture trivia, and maybe a few dusty old issues of Superman. The guy just wasn't the same.

He used to be constantly at work, devising formulas, piecing together equations and experimenting with materials that could very well have cured all disease and famine and saved the world. When Valerie came, he couldn't even do the 128 times tables in his head. So smitten was he, in fact, that I've heard it rumored he was once spotted in Wal-Mart (yes, Wal-Mart) purchasing a pocket calculator.

My theory is that Eric was on his way down long before we even knew Valerie Greenwood's name. Oh, yeah, he adored the girl, even if she didn't know he existed, even if she and her rowdy pink-bookbag-clad, 90210-watching clique could be heard giggling, even squealing with glee, but suddenly became silent the moment Eric was within a few yards.

No, all that is irrelevant if you ask me, and I should know, I was his best friend. I think Eric Jason Hinez was done for the day he bought the telescope. It wasn't an especially fancy or elaborate device; my understanding was it was manufactured by Sears & Roebuck as a toy for your amateur astronomers and such. He bought it second-hand from my brother, Will, for two quarters and the Castlevania videogame for Nintendo, still in the box. (Eric felt videogames were trite and had received this as a gift from an aunt.)

That night, Eric spent two hours locked up in his room, setting up the equipment then consulting a few books he'd checked out from the library to learn more about what was newly visible to him. The next day at school and for weeks thereafter, everything that came out of Eric's mouth had something to do with space, the stars, the comets, the planets, the galaxies and meteors. He was fascinated, and suddenly everything else took a backseat.

A day came when I looked out my bedroom window, from which I could clearly see the Hinez family's backyard. Eric's telescope was sitting in the corner near the back door. This was not unusual; he often sat out late on weekends to watch the sky. His actions, however, most certainly were -- he was sitting in the middle of the yard with a shovel, digging. Not a heavy duty, industry-grade shovel, just the kind of children's shovel you can buy to help with the construction of sandcastles. The lawn, which Mr. Hinez had worked on so hard for so long, was destroyed, to make way for Eric's hole.

Of course, I couldn't mind my business about this. On Monday I approached him in the hallway at school and got right to it. "Eric, why are you digging a hole in your backyard?"

"Because," Eric said. That was all the reasoning you could get from Eric J. Hinez.

And so the digging continued, day after day, night after night. Eric's hole became something of a private joke in the neighborhood that slowly swept its way around our school. Even the new girl, Valerie Greenwood, probably heard something about Eric's hole, and although she wouldn't really understand the gag, she might pretend to and maybe even let out a polite laugh.

Valerie moved here on February 15th. I remember it was the day after Valentines, because Eric was deeply upset that he had missed the perfect opportunity to explain his feelings to the sweet-natured redhead now sitting in the front of Mrs. Beasley's second-grade class. Right from the first day she came, he couldn't keep his eyes off her. I asked what made her so special.

"She's taking everything in," he told me. "I can see it in her face. She sees everything that goes on and one of these days she's going to write a book about it, or something."

I didn't see it. Valerie seemed just like any other second-grader to me. She had her friends, she did well enough in her studies, and at recess she ran around with the other girls and sometimes played on the swings. But maybe I was the one who was wrong. Eric saw something that I didn't, that's all.

At this point, Eric's conversation topic of choice morphed from the wonders of space to the wonders of Valerie. He was enamored, and I looked out the window some nights, and Eric wasn't even outside working on his hole. He wasn't looking at the stars, either, because his telescope was still sitting outside, lonely and perhaps forgotten.

One day in the spring, Eric was at my house and he began to cry. "I can't write anymore," he told me. "I was working on a play, but I can't get anywhere with it, and what I have written is simply awful."

"I'm sure it's fine," I reassured him. "Let me read it."

"Oh, I couldn't."

"Please, do! You're an excellent writer, I would enjoy hearing some of your new work."

"Well... I'll recite it for you."

"Oh, um, okay," I said, surprised by the offer.

Eric cleared his throat. "First, the setup. 'Scene 1: Tuesday afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson wander into a room that is occupied by a swarm of greedy schoolchildren, who have turned all of the furniture upside down.'"

"Go on."

"'Hilarity ensues.'" Eric paused. "That's all I have."

Near the end of the school year, Eric finally announced to me one afternoon that his hole was finished and that the next phase of his project was ready to begin. It was nice at last to hear that his enthusiasm was building again about something. I decided to be persistent and inquire as to what exactly this "project" entailed.

"Oh, it's a gift."

"A gift? For whom?"

"For... Valerie."

I couldn't believe it. All of the months of madness for a girl to whom Eric had scarcely, if ever, even spoken. And it didn't make sense. "But the hole, Eric. You started the hole before Valerie even got here."

"True enough," he replied thoughtfully, "but you see, I've learned a lot since then." Mysterious as ever, he turned and walked away.

For the next few weeks, he kept the gate on the fence closed as he worked so that I was forcibly oblivious to the action in the yard by the hole. I was awoken many a night during the summer by the banging of a hammer, the whir of a drill, or simply mysterious rhythmic pounding, sometimes accompanied by a sharp, metallic clanging.

At 5:00 in the morning on a Monday in July, I was awake watching television when I heard a sound outside my window. I opened the blinds cautiously to investigate and noticed the gate open. Within the Hinez family's backyard was a large, menacing, oddly-shaped object covered with a black bedsheet. In front of it stood Eric, tossing pebbles at my window. "Come on," he whispered, motioning.

I climbed out the window to learn of Eric's latest venture. We walked silently over, past the gate and to Eric's hole ("Careful now, don't fall," he said), in the center of which stood the mysterious object.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Of course."

Eric nodded and gave the bedsheet a tug, tossing it away to reveal something the likes of which I had never seen. It looked vaguely similar to a refrigerator, but colorful, full of brilliant light, and with five large antennae on top, plus some kind of steam or smoke rising from the bottom. Eric knew what I was about to ask and answered before I got the chance. "It's a spaceship," he said. "An incredibly simple one at that. I have already tested it. It can break through the atmosphere without the slightest risk, and travel the greatest distances at an incomporable speed. It is an utterly flawless invention."

I didn't need to ask if he was serious. Eric never lied. Mostly I was just mystified. "Eric, you have just invented something that could benefit mankind so greatly, but you're giving it to some girl because you have a crush on her?"

Eric's face fell. "Well, I never." He flipped a switch; the incessant buzzing that I had not previously noticed ceased, along with the casual blinking of the multicolored lights on his spaceship. "I don't have a crush every day, you know. It's a pretty special event. She's a special girl, so it's hers."

"Are you giving it to her today?" I asked.

"No, no." He smiled. "I have a few trips to make first."

He hopped into his ship and closed the door. A moment later, the lights again flashed and the machine levitated, revealing the enormous portion of the ship hidden within Eric's hole. It appeared to consist of everything from vaccum machine parts to old computer speakers to a Mouse Trap board game. Off he went into the sky, soon away from view.

Later, I was in the park down the street and I told everyone about the spacecraft, the brilliant lights, the incessant humming, and Eric's mysterious departure. Eric found out where I was upon his return and came to the park at six or seven that night, the sky still gloriously bright, to tell us about his trip. "I went to Mercury," he explained. "It was hot. I wouldn't want to live there." Here I'd been hoping for a long tale of the irregular and inexplicable beauty of the universe beyond Earth, like so many of the stories he'd filled me with when his love for space was new. But no, that was all we got. "I went to Mercury. It was hot. I wouldn't want to live there." He began to walk home, turning around once briefly to tell us he'd be taking another trip tomorrow.

On Tuesday he went to Venus. "Too exotic." Wednesday, Mars. "Too decadent." Thursday, Jupiter. "Too big." Friday, Saturn. "Too many rings, and ugly aliens." Saturday, he managed a long trip to Uranus ("Awful name") and Neptune ("Too gaseous"). Finally, on Sunday it was Pluto. "I liked Pluto, actually," he told us, munching on some peanut brittle. "But you know, it's a funny thing. I think Earth is the best place to live, in the long run. They have pretty girls and good food, and some nice landscapes here. The other planets... I don't know, it just wasn't the same. But I hope Valerie likes her present. I'm done with the ship now. I'm leaving it on her doorstep tonight."

All of us longed for the experience that seemed so much to simply bore Eric. We almost wished he had a crush on one of us, not Valerie, or that at least he'd take us for maybe a ride or two in his incredible invention. But... after all, it was Eric's machine.

That night, Eric knocked on my door. "I have a lot of errands to run; let's have lunch sometime," he said, tipping his hat and walking inexplicably in the opposite direction of his house. "Remember what I said... about Earth," he shouted after I'd slammed the front door. What a weirdo, I thought.

The next day I couldn't find Eric J. Hinez. No one could. He wasn't in his room or in his yard. He wasn't in the park. We even looked at Valerie's house, but no Eric. I never saw him again, and no one else did either. His spaceship sits in Valerie's room now, where it's been ever since his disappearance. Since the last time we saw Eric, Valerie's changed a lot. She doesn't make time with the same crowd now, and really, she doesn't say much. I think I now see what Eric meant about her, though. Her face suggests to me a kind of unattainable wisdom, even kindness, but it remains far out of my reach.

I wonder what she thinks of all this.