Published: April 1, 2000

Conscientious Objectors

Alex Sommerfeld is pretty much your typical teenager. Thin with close-cropped dark hair, he likes soccer, surfs the Internet for hours at a time, and is on intimate terms with profanity. He lives in a small, white-frame house in the Boston suburb of Danvers with his father. When his dad tells him to stop biting his nails, he tells his dad to shut up.