And when I’m standing alone in the hospital hallway, I hear a squeaking sound—it’s the saddest sound in the entire universe, and it makes me want to start laughing. I turn to see a kid emerge from his room, pushing a cart ahead of him with a bunch of cables dangling from it. For a second I think it’s some big medical contraption, but then I realize it’s his movie projector.

“Viet?” I say.

“Ian!” He powers on, heaving with exertion just from walking.

“What’re we doing today?” I ask as I help him steer the cart down the hall.

“I wasn’t gonna bother you with it. I overheard what you and your friends were arguing about.”

“I could deal with being bothered,” I tell him.

He brightens. “Well. I’m heading to the dayroom. And I’m attempting to hack together a home-brew 3-D screening of Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder.”

“Seriously?” I say. “That’s awesome.”

“You have no idea what that is, do you?”

“No.”

I help him set up the dayroom like a theater, with all the chairs in rows, and all the sunshine sealed out so it’s pitch-black when the lights go down—which is a little confusing to the half-dozen other kids who are in there with us. Viet promises they’re in for a treat and they ignore him, like this isn’t the first time they’ve heard that promise.

“So, before—you heard everything?” I ask him.

“Couldn’t help it,” he says. “It seems … pretty screwed up.”

I just laugh. “I can’t deal with it anymore, Viet.”

“The only thing you can’t do is drink an entire gallon of milk at once.”

“Or eat a whole teaspoon of cinnamon,” I say back.

“Or stay awake through an entire Hitchcock movie,” he teases me.

“Hey, I woke up for the end of that one.”

“Which one?”

“Where the guy’s hanging from the end of President Lincoln’s nose.”

“You mean from Mount Rushmore? North by Northwest?”

“Yeah, that.”

“You didn’t even get the ending,” he scoffs. “I had to explain it to you.”

“Whatever, it was dumb the way it ended.”

“Dude!” says Viet. “Hitchcock was making a comment—wait, you’re messing with me now, aren’t you?”

I grin. “It’s fun when you get all worked up.”

He drops his head and mumbles, “Hitchcock is a genius.”

“You’ll be way better one day, Viet,” I say. “Your movies will actually make sense. Or at least they’ll all be in color, anyway.”

“It’s time to go, Ian,” Nurse Norse calls before I know it.

“Already?”

“Ash, you too,” the nurse motions across the room.

And that’s when I see Ash hiding in the corner, playing this card game the older kids taught us at JANUS. It’s a game called slap where you have to slap a pile of cards really fast, and sometimes it gets kinda intense.

This game isn’t intense, though. Ash is just showing a younger girl the ropes.

“Aw, man!” she says when Ash points out that she forgot to slap the double sevens.

“Well, let’s go ahead and slap on the count of three,” he says.

Her face turns into a huge grin. “One,” she says. “Two—” And before she gets to three, she slaps. “Mine!” She scoops up all the cards.

“Nice one!” says Ash.

She scowls. “Are you going easy on me?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Don’t go easy!” she complains.

“You just find some more kids and practice while I’m gone,” says Ash. “And tomorrow, when I come back …”

“Sweet vengeance!” she roars.

Ash looks up at me with a big grin. “I taught her that,” he says.

“It’s pretty great,” I reply.

And then, as we’re walking back, I feel my feet getting heavier. And heavier. And maybe I slow down a little …

“I know,” says Ash. “Is it weird that I want to stay in the hospital instead of going back?”

“No,” I say. “Wanna see if we can hide out?”

“What about Alva though?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Ian. What’re we gonna do?”

“Do you think Devon would really get a kid sent to the Village?” I ask.

We walk toward the bus in silence, and Devon and Mark come up from behind and hurry past, joking like everything’s fine.

That’s when Ash makes his decision: “Listen. I’m not letting anybody bully me into not sitting with my friend. Let alone someone who’s also supposed to be my friend.”

“Well,” I say after a moment, “then this is going to be fun, isn’t it?”