No child should ever have to sell themselves.

But that is the quiet economy of a room like that, and the little ones threw themselves into it, coloring their brightest pictures, laughing their loudest laughs, while the boy by the window had simply opted out of the whole market entirely.

He was not doing any of that.

He sat alone near a large window, a teenager, reading a paperback with a focus so complete that he seemed to have built a small private room around himself in the middle of the noise.

He was not trying to get anyone’s attention.