“Are we still in Minneapolis?”

She laughed. “Not hardly. And not in Kansas anymore, Toto. We’re in Maine. Way up in the williwags. At least according to Maureen, we are.”

“In Maine?” He shook his head, as if he had taken a blow to the temple. “Are you sure?”

“Yup. You’re looking mighty white, white boy. I think you should sit down before you fall down.”

He sat, bracing himself with one hand as he did so, because his legs didn’t exactly flex. It was more like a collapse.

“I was home,” he said. “I was home, and then I woke up here. In a room that looks like my room, but isn’t.”

“I know,” she said. “Shock, innit?” She wriggled her hand into the pocket of her pants and brought out a box. On it was a picture of a cowboy spinning a lariat. ROUND-UP CANDY CIGARETTES, it said. SMOKE JUST LIKE DADDY! “Want one? A little sugar might help your state of mind. It always helps mine.”

Luke took the box and flipped up the lid. There were six cigarettes left inside, each one with a red tip that he guessed was supposed to be the coal. He took one, stuck it between his lips, then bit it in half. Sweetness flooded his mouth.

“Don’t ever do that with a real cigarette,” she said. “You wouldn’t like the taste half so well.”

“I didn’t know they still sold stuff like this,” he said.

“They don’t sell this kind, for sure,” she said. “Smoke just like Daddy? Are you kiddin me? Got to be an antique. But they got some weird shit in the canteen. Including real cigarettes, if you can believe that. All straights, Luckies and Chesterfields and Camels, like in those old flicks on Turner Classic Movies. I’m tempted to try, but man, they take a lot of tokens.”

“Real cigarettes? You don’t mean for kids?”

“Kids be the whole population here. Not that there are many in Front Half just now. Maureen says we may have more coming. I don’t know where she gets her info, but it’s usually good.”

“Cigarettes for kids? What is this? Pleasure Island?” Not that he felt very pleasurable just now.

That cracked her up. “Like in Pinocchio! Good one!” She held up her hand. Luke slapped her five and felt a little better. Hard telling why.

“What’s your name? I can’t just keep calling you white boy. It’s, like, racial profiling.”

“Luke Ellis. What’s yours?”

“Kalisha Benson.” She raised a finger. “Now pay attention, Luke. You can call me Kalisha, or you can call me Sha. Just don’t call me Sport.”

“Why not?” Still trying to get his bearings, still not succeeding. Not even close. He ate the other half of his cigarette, the one with the fake ember on the tip.

“Cause that’s what Hendricks and his fellow dipsticks say when they give you the shots or do their tests. ‘I’m gonna stick a needle in your arm and it’ll hurt, but be a good sport. I’m gonna take a throat culture, which will make you gag like a fuckin maggot, but be a good sport. We’re gonna dip you in the tank, but just hold your breath and be a good sport.’ That’s why you can’t call me Sport.”

Luke hardly paid attention to the stuff about the tests, although he would consider it later. He was back on fuckin. He had heard it from plenty of boys (he and Rolf said it a lot when they were out), and he had heard it from the pretty redhead who might have bricked the SATs, but never from a girl his own age. He supposed that meant he had led a sheltered life.

She put her hand on his knee, which gave him a bit of a tingle, and looked at him earnestly. “But my advice is go on and be a good sport no matter how much it sucks, no matter what they stick down your throat or up your butt. The tank I don’t really know about, I never had that one myself, only heard about it, but I know as long as they’re testing you, you stay in Front Half. I don’t know what goes on in Back Half, and I don’t want to know. All I do know is that Back Half’s like the Roach Motel—kids check in, but they don’t check out. Not back to here, anyway.”

He looked back the way he had come. There were lots of motivational posters, and there were also lots of doors, eight or so on either side. “How many kids are here?”

“Five, counting you and me. Front Half’s never jammed, but right now it’s like a ghost town. Kids come and go.”

“Talking of Michelangelo,” Luke muttered.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. What—”

One of the double doors at the near end of the corridor opened, and a woman in a brown dress appeared, her back to them. She was holding the door with her butt while she struggled with something. Kalisha was up in a flash. “Hey, Maureen, hey, girl, hold on, let us help.”

Since it was us instead of me, Luke got up and went after Kalisha. When he got closer, he saw the brown dress was actually a kind of uniform, like a maid might wear in a swanky hotel—medium swanky, anyway, it wasn’t gussied up with ruffles or anything. She was trying to drag a laundry basket over the metal strip between this hallway and the big room beyond, which looked like a lounge—there were tables and chairs and windows letting in bright sunlight. There was also a TV that looked the size of a movie screen. Kalisha opened the other door to make more room. Luke took hold of the laundry basket (DANDUX printed on the side) and helped the woman pull it into what he was starting to think of as the dormitory corridor. There were sheets and towels inside.

“Thank you, son,” she said. She was pretty old, with a fair amount of gray in her hair, and she looked tired. The tag over her sloping left breast said MAUREEN. She looked him over. “You’re new. Luke, right?”

“Luke Ellis. How did you know?”

“Got it on my day sheet.” She pulled a folded piece of paper halfway out of her skirt pocket, then pushed it back in.

Luke offered his hand, as he had been taught. “Pleased to meet you.”

Maureen shook it. She seemed nice enough, so he guessed he was pleased to meet her. But he wasn’t pleased to be here; he was scared and worried about his parents as well as himself. They’d have missed him by now. He didn’t think they’d want to believe he’d run away, but when they found his bedroom empty, what other conclusion could they draw? The police would be looking for him soon, if they weren’t already, but if Kalisha was right, they’d be looking a long way from here.

Maureen’s palm was warm and dry. “I’m Maureen Alvorson. Housekeeping and all-around handy gal. I’ll be keeping your room nice for you.”

“And don’t make a lot of extra work for her,” Kalisha said, giving him a forbidding look.

Maureen smiled. “You’re a peach, Kalisha. This one don’t look like he’s gonna be messy, not like that Nicky. He’s like Pigpen in the Peanuts comics. Is he in his room now? I don’t see him out in the playground with George and Iris.”

“You know Nicky,” Kalisha said. “If he’s up before one in the afternoon, he calls it an early day.”

“Then I’ll just do the others, but the docs want him at one. If he’s not up, they’ll get him up. Pleased to meet you, Luke.” And she went on her way, now pushing her basket instead of tugging it.

“Come on,” Kalisha said, taking Luke’s hand. Worried about his parents or not, he got another of those tingles.

She tugged him into the lounge area. He wanted to scope the place out, especially the vending machines (real cigarettes, was that possible?), but as soon as the door was closed behind them, Kalisha was up in his face. She looked serious, almost fierce.

“I don’t know how long you’ll be here—don’t know how much longer I will be, for that matter—but while you are, be cool to Maureen, hear? This place is staffed with some mean-ass shitheads, but she’s not one of them. She’s nice. And she’s got problems.”

“What kind of problems?” He asked mostly to be polite. He was looking out the window, at what had to be the playground. There were two kids there, a boy and a girl, maybe his own age, maybe a little older.

“She thinks she might be sick for one, but she doesn’t want to go to the doctor because she can’t afford to be sick. She only makes about forty grand a year, and she’s got, like, twice that much in bills. Maybe more. Her husband ran them up, then ran out. And it keeps piling up, okay? The interest.”

“The vig,” Luke said. “That’s what my dad calls it. Short for vigorish. From the Ukrainian word for profits or winnings. It’s a hoodlum term, and Dad says the credit card companies are basically hoods. Based on the compounding interest they charge, he’s got a . . .”

“Got what? A point?”

“Yeah.” He stopped looking at the kids outside—George and Iris, presumably—and turned to Kalisha. “She told you all that? To a kid? You must be an ace at intrapersonal relationships.”