“Oh man. Family is the worst, right?” Devon throws himself on his bed.

“Did something weird happen at your family dinner?” says Mark.

“Weird?” he says with bitter amusement. “Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“LIGHTS OUT, BOYS!” the warning comes from the hall.

“Wait. Jeremy’s not back,” says Cole, looking at Jeremy’s empty bunk.

“You think he got sent to the Village?” says Devon.

“No way,” says Mark. “He’s too smart to get sent there.”

Ash and I exchange a glance across the room. We didn’t get a chance to talk since he got back from dinner—because Devon wouldn’t let me out of his sight—and now’s not the safest time to tell him everything, not with all these bullies surrounding us. Plus, the Freak won’t shut up in my head long enough for me to think. It’s Devon the Freak wants me to talk to now.

This is your chance to confront him, it urges. He’s messing with ASH!

I look down at Devon, and the blood pumps in my ears.

Just say SOMETHING.

But my lungs won’t fill. It’s like gravity just quadrupled. Like a two-ton barbell is pressing down on me—

And then I see that I’m not at JANUS: I’m sitting in the cafeteria at East Huron Elementary School, and I’m chewing yet one more peanut butter sandwich in an endless stream of them.

As I take the last bite, I realize that it’s not Max who is allergic to peanut butter … it’s me.

It’s always been me.

And I’m eating this sandwich—I just keep eating it, even though I shouldn’t—and my airway is closing, and it’s my own fault.

But the allergy attack feels like a jolt of electricity running through my bones and muscles. Preventing my brain from sending the message to breathe. My brain is shouting it over and over, but it sounds like a burbling creek’s whisper and the electricity is a giant whitewater churn …

And I’m swept away.

For a minute, I can hear colors and the last day of elementary school is happening all over again but in reverse. And I come up with an amazing joke about how many Thomas Edisons it takes to screw in a lightbulb—but just when I’m about to tell it, my dog Scarlet rips past and steals my joke and gulps it down and runs away … and I’m chasing after her, and I’m stumbling right into the middle of JANUS orientation … and my uniform gets tighter and tighter and starts strangling me.

I know I’m having a nightmare—but I can’t wake up; it’s more real than being awake.

The more I fight, the worse it gets. Like quicksand. I wriggle and sink under the floor, and underneath is a murky, frigid river. I sink the whole way to the bottom—way, way down—and when I do, I find out I’m actually on my street in East Huron, only the air is replaced with water, and there’s a boy in bronze clothing standing there right by my side.

Well, it’s a statue of a boy, I guess. A twelve-year-old hero, preserved in metal and made into a monument of what all twelve-year-old boys should be.

Thomas Edison, you’re such a jerk. A perfect, bronze little jerk.

The statue turns its head to look straight at me. “Come on, Ian,” it says. And its voice is full of crackles, like a radio station that’s not quite in tune. “I never claimed to be perfect.”

That’s what they taught us, though. You were awesome.

“Seriously, do you even know anything about me? I did some pretty bully-tastic stuff, and you’d know that if you bothered to look it up.”

I haven’t exactly had spare time, you know.

“You have had a lot churning around in your brain, I guess,” says Edison. And as soon as he reminds me: FLUSH—we’re back at JANUS, walking down an empty hallway.

“So what are you gonna do about Devon and everything, Ian?” Tom Edison asks me, and about five giant security cameras swing around and pin me in their unblinking gaze. Examining me. So I freeze, too scared I’ll make the wrong choice. Because I don’t want to be turned into a statue.

I’m not perfect, and I’m never going to be. I don’t even want to be, I realize—and that’s when I notice I’m not the only one being examined. JANUS is gone now, and I’m in a big, white doctor’s office.

“There’s nothing wrong with your son, Mr. Edison,” says the doctor, tapping the statue of twelve-year-old Thomas Edison with a hollow, lifeless Bong! Bong! that vibrates along the floor.

“Then why does he think he’s in the year two thousand and whatever, and he’s stuck being some dumb kid’s imaginary friend?” says Tom’s dad. “Also why is he made out of metal? I’m pretty sure he wasn’t always like that.”

“Hmm,” says the doctor. “Maybe we should pump him full of electricity and see if it helps.”

“Is that really the best idea?” says Tom’s dad.

“I dunno, but it sure sounds like fun,” says the doctor, and when he smiles, I suddenly recognize that it’s Devon—and then electricity screams through the young inventor’s bronze body, and I’m ripped out of my dream and wake up shivering in my sweat-soaked pajamas.