“The fuck they are,” he murmured, and wished his mom was around to hear him use that word and reprimand him for it. That he didn’t have his father was bad. That he didn’t have his mother was like a pulled tooth.

When he got to the Ice Machine Hallway, he saw Maureen’s Dandux basket parked outside Avery’s room. He poked his head in, and she gave him a smile as she smoothed down the coverlet on the Avester’s bed. “All okay, Luke?”

A stupid question, but he knew she meant it well; just how he knew might have something or nothing to do with yesterday’s light-show. Maureen’s face looked paler today, the lines around her mouth deeper. Luke thought, This woman is not okay.

“Sure. How about you?”

“I’m fine.” She was lying. This didn’t feel like a hunch or an insight; it felt like a rock-solid fact. “Except this one—Avery—wet the bed last night.” She sighed. “He’s not the first and he won’t be the last. Thankfully it didn’t go through the mattress pad. You take care now, Luke. Have a fine day.” She was looking directly at him, her eyes hopeful. Except it was what was behind them that was hopeful. He thought again, They changed me. I don’t know how and I don’t know how much, but yes, they changed me. Something new has been added. He was very glad he’d lied about the cards. And very glad they believed his lie. At least for now.

He made as if to leave the doorway, then turned back. “Think I’ll get some more ice. They slapped me around some yesterday, and my face is sore.”

“You do that, son. You do that.”

Again, that son warmed him. Made him want to smile.

He got the bucket that was still in his room, dumped the meltwater into the bathroom basin, and took it back to the ice machine. Maureen was there, bent over with her bottom against the cinderblock wall, hands on her shins almost all the way down to her ankles. Luke hurried to her, but she waved him off. “Just stretching my back. Getting the kinks out.”

Luke opened the door of the ice machine and got the scoop. He couldn’t pass her a note, as Kalisha had passed one to him, because although he had a laptop, he had no paper and no pen. Not even a stub of a pencil. Maybe that was good. Notes were dangerous in here.

“Leah Fink, in Burlington,” he murmured as he scooped ice. “Rudolph Davis, in Montpelier. Both have five stars on Legal Eagle. That’s a consumer website. Can you remember the names?”

“Leah Fink, Rudolph Davis. Bless you, Luke.”

Luke knew he should leave it at that, but he was curious. He had always been curious. So instead of going, he pounded at the ice, as if to break it up. It didn’t need any breaking, but it made a nice loud sound. “Avery said the money you’ve got saved is for a kid. I know it’s not any of my business—”

“The little Dixon boy’s one of the mind-readers, isn’t he? And he must be a powerful one, bed-wetter or not. No pink dot on his intake.”

“Yeah, he is.” Luke went on stirring with the ice scoop.

“Well, he’s right. It was a church adoption, right after my boy was born. I wanted to keep him, but pastor and my mother talked me out of it. The dog I married never wanted kids, so it was just the one I gave away. Do you really care about this, Luke?”

“Yeah.” He did, but talking too long might be a bad idea. They might not be able to hear, but they could watch.

“When I started getting my back pains, it came to me that I had to know what became of him, and I found out. State says they’re not supposed to tell where the babies go, but the church keeps adoption records going all the way back to 1950, and I got the computer password. Pastor keeps it right underneath the keyboard in the parsonage. My boy’s just two towns over from where I live in Vermont. A senior in high school. He wants to go to college. I found that out, too. My son wants to go to college. That’s what the money’s for, not to pay off that dirty dog’s bills.”

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, a quick and almost furtive gesture.

He closed the ice chest and straightened up. “Take care of your back, Maureen.”

“I will.”

But what if it was cancer? That was what she thought it was, he knew it.

She touched his shoulder as he turned away and leaned close. Her breath was bad. It was a sick person’s breath. “He doesn’t ever have to know where the money came from, my boy. But he needs to have it. And Luke? Do what they say, now. Everything they say.” She hesitated. “And if you want to talk to anybody about anything . . . do it here.”

“I thought there were some other places where—”

“Do it here,” she repeated, and rolled her basket back the way she had come.

19

When he returned to the playground, Luke was surprised to see Nicky playing HORSE with Harry Cross. They were laughing and bumping and ranking on each other as if they had been friends since first grade. Helen was sitting at the picnic table, playing double-deck War with Avery. Luke sat down beside her and asked who was winning.

“Hard to tell,” Helen said. “Avery beat me last time, but this one’s a nail-biter.”

“She thinks it’s boring as shit, but she’s being nice,” Avery said. “Isn’t that right, Helen?”

“Indeed it is, Little Kreskin, indeed it is. And after this, we’re moving on to Slap Jack. You won’t like that one because I slap hard.”

Luke looked around, and felt a sudden stab of concern. It bloomed a squadron of ghostly dots in front of his eyes, there and then gone. “Where’s Kalisha? They didn’t—”

“No, no, they didn’t take her anywhere. She’s just having a shower.”

“Luke likes her,” Avery announced. “He likes her a lot.”

“Avery?”

“What, Helen?”

“Some things are better not discussed.”

“Why?”

“Because Y’s a crooked letter and can’t be made straight.” She looked away suddenly. She ran a hand through her tu-tone hair, perhaps to hide her trembling mouth. If so, it didn’t work.

“What’s wrong?” Luke asked.

“Why don’t you just ask Little Kreskin? He sees all, he knows all.”

“She got a thermometer jammed up her butt,” Avery said.

“Oh,” Luke said.

“Right,” Helen said. “How fucking degrading is that?”

“Demeaning,” Luke said.

“But also delightful and delicious,” Helen said, and then they were both laughing. Helen did it with tears standing in her eyes, but laughing was laughing, and being able to do it in here was a treasure.

“I don’t get it,” Avery said. “How is getting a thermometer up your butt delightful and delicious?”

“It’s delicious if you lick it when it comes out,” Luke said, and then they were all howling.

Helen whacked the table, sending the cards flying. “Oh God I’m peeing myself, gross, don’t look!” And she went running, almost knocking George over as he came outside, noshing a peanut butter cup.

“What’s her deal?” George asked.

“Peed herself,” Avery said matter-of-factly. “I peed my bed last night, so I can relate.”

“Thank you for sharing that,” Luke said, smiling. “Go over and play HORSE with Nicky and New Kid.”

“Are you crazy? They’re too big, and Harry already pushed me down once.”

“Then go jump on the trampoline.”

“I’m bored of it.”

“Go jump on it, anyway. I want to talk to George.”

“About the lights? What lights?”

The kid, Luke thought, was fucking eerie. “Go jump, Avester. Show me a couple of forward rolls.”

“And try not to break your neck,” George said. “But if you do, I’ll sing ‘You Are So Beautiful’ at your funeral.”

Avery looked at George fixedly for a moment or two, then said, “But you hate that song.”

“Yes,” George said. “Yes, I do. Saying what I did is called satire. Or maybe irony. I always get those two things mixed up. Go on, now. Put an egg in your shoe and beat it.”

They watched him trudge to the trampoline.

“That kid is ten and except for the ESP shit acts like he’s six,” George said. “How fucked up is that?”

“Pretty fucked up. How old are you, George?”

“Thirteen,” George said, sounding morose. “But these days I feel a hundred. Listen, Luke, they say our parents are okay. Do you believe that?”

It was a delicate question. At last Luke said, “Not . . . exactly.”

“If you could find out for sure, would you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not me,” George said. “I’ve got enough on my plate already. Finding out they were . . . you know . . . that would break me. But I can’t help wondering. Like all the time.”

I could find out for you, Luke thought. I could find out for both of us. He almost leaned forward and whispered it in George’s ear. Then he thought of George saying he had enough on his plate already. “Listen, that eye thing—you had it?”

“Sure. Everyone has it. Just like everyone gets the thermometer up the ass, and the EEG and the EKG and the MRI and the XYZ and the blood tests and the reflex tests and all the other wonderful things you have in store, Lukey.”

Luke thought about asking if George had gone on seeing the dots after the projector was off and decided not to. “Did you have a seizure? Because I did.”

“Nah. They did sit me down at a table, and the asshole doc with the mustache did some card tricks.”