“W hat?” Constance and I snap.
“I’m sorry. It just happened,” Tom says.
“I don’t think we can help all the Mushroomers escape then,” Constance addresses me. “We need to leave some behind.”
“No one is going to be left behind but me and the March,” I say.
“Well, that’s not up to us anymore,” Constance says. “Mr. Mock Turtle just blew it.”
“Anyway to reverse this time?” I ask Tom.
“Please don’t encourage him to push more buttons and blow us up.” Constance rolls her eyes.
“Tom?” I eye him directly.
Tom fidgets with the bottle of pills but takes none. He seems to have something to say, but is reluctant.
“What is it, Tom?” I demand.
“Spit it out!” Constance is about to punch him in the face.
“I may have a solution,” Tom says.
“May?” I wonder.
“I don’t know why it’s designed this way, but it’s our only hope.” Tom directs his speech toward me.
“Talk to me, Tom,” I tell him.
“On the back of the timer, it said that the control chair in the room has a sensor that could stop the self-destruction.”
“Sensor? On the chair?”
“Like I said, it’s an absurdly mad thing,” Tom says. “It says that the weight of an adult on the chair stops the process.”
“That’s unexceptionally weird,” I say.
“It’s the only solution,” Tom says. “Someone has to sacrifice themselves and sit on the chair until we all leave the place.”
“And then?”
“Then, they will either burn with the asylum or get killed by the police when they break in.”
“I’ll do it!” Constance volunteers by raising her hand up high, as if she’s answering a question in the classroom.
“You’re not an adult,” Tom says. “Your weight won’t hold.”
Instantly, their eyes shift toward me. Constance seems worried I’ll volunteer, I think. And Tom would sacrifice the flamingo trapped in the room next to the Pillar’s to get out of here.
But then I realize that Tom isn’t staring at me, but at the March.
“Shame on you!” I say. “I’m not going to do this to the March.”
“Why not?” Tom says. “He is an adult — of course, he thinks he is a child and has a light bulb in his head, but he’s still an adult.”
“Shut up!” Constance interferes.
But he doesn’t stop. “And he is dead. The March is dead. He is the perfect candidate for the chair that will save our lives.”
For a moment, Constance seems to contemplate the idea. I know she does because she wants to convince me to leave with her. The sound of the panicking Mushroomers outside isn’t helping me with thinking.
I need to make a rushed decision. One that’s only reasoned with heart, not the mind.
“I’m staying,” I say. “Me and the March.”