When I’m back inside, I make a point of avoiding all the places Devon might be waiting to talk to me. I just go right to the one spot where I can be alone.

I hold my breath until the door on my time machine is closed, but as soon as I exhale, a voice from the stall next to me pipes up:

“We need to talk, Ian,” says Alva Anonymous. In the boys’ bathroom.

I sit very still.

“Ian, you can’t just ignore me.”

“I’m not ignoring you, Alva.”

“False,” she says.

“Look, you’re not allowed in here, and I’m kind of busy right now.”

“And I’m not?” she asks.

“If you’re so busy, why are you hanging out in the boys’ bathroom and—were you waiting for me?”

“You’ve been hard to get to on your own,” she says.

I sigh. “What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you. Was that not obvious?”

“No, I got it.”

I can hear the door of her stall open and feel my teeth vibrate from the impact as it closes.

“Please come out,” she says.

I know that time moves differently inside my time machine: Even though I’m not changing, the world around me is … and, what if, the next thing I know, Alva’s gone! Disappeared forever? I better hurry if I want one last chance. Or so the Freak tells me.

“Hold on,” I say.

I pretend like I’m actually using the toilet: With a flush and a huge Freakish smile, I open the door.

And there’s Alva, arms folded. “Nice acting. I totally believed you were pooping, Ian.”

“Ha ha ha,” I say. Like, the actual words. Don’t mistake it for a laugh. “Sometimes it’s just nice to have the feeling of not wearing pants, ya know?”

She doesn’t skip a beat. “So. It took me a while. But I finally figured out what’s been going on with you and Ash.”

As Alva looks at me and waits for my reaction, Cole Harper stumbles into the bathroom and gets his zipper halfway down before skidding to a stop face-to-face with Alva. He looks from her to me and back to her.

“No. Turn around,” says Alva, pointing him toward the door.

“But I need to—”

“Bye bye,” she says, shoving him into the hall.

And then Alva and I are just standing there. Staring at each other.

“So,” she says. “Let’s talk about your little deal.”

“My little deal?” I ask her.

“Yeah. Mark told me all about the brilliant bargain you made with him. You know … the one where you and Ash promised to stop spending time with me and in return Miranda and Devon wouldn’t try to get me sent to the Village?”

“Oh,” I say. “Right.” I make to go wash my hands.

“Yeah. Oh right.” She pulls me back. “Is that really what Ash thinks of me? That I’m too weak to fight my own battles?”

“No, that isn’t … we didn’t mean—we were just trying to protect you, Alva.”

She folds her arms.

“Ash didn’t want to see you get hurt the way our friend Max did.”

“I’m not some helpless little kid. And you aren’t, either,” she adds with a pointed look.

I swallow hard. “I know.”

“And, honestly, I’m tired of treating you like one—even if you seem perfectly cool to let everyone else do it.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you,” I say.

“Me too, dude.”

Before I know it, she’s squeezing me in a tight hug.

“Is this some new form of argument that I don’t understand?” I ask her.

By the way she laughs it feels like I did something right. I’m not totally sure what it is though.

“We’re hugging it out, Ian.”

“Oh.”

“It was nice of you to be worried about me, I guess,” she says. “Just don’t ever do it again.”

“It won’t happen again,” I tell her, which is a very meaningful promise, coming from a time traveler. Then something she said comes back to me: “Wait. Hold on. Did you say Mark told you about all this?”

She nods. “I guess he didn’t realize how bad you guys would mope around. He thought maybe as long as the four of us kept hidden from Devon and Miranda …”

“Then we could still secretly get along?” I glance up at her, barely daring to believe.

“Having secrets is sort of cool,” she says with a smile.

“It is,” I agree.

Which is exactly why I decide to tell her about the video Jeremy showed me.

“Oh, man,” she says after I explain. “Now I know why you’re hiding in here.”

“I may never leave.”

“How’s Ash?”

“Haven’t told him yet.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“I know …”

“Well?” She flicks her head to the door with a smile. “No time like the present.”

Deep inside me, the Freak totally agrees.