“Did Zig make the porridge?” Johnny Henzel asks.

“No, the three bears did,” I say. This is my attempt at lighthearted humor, but Johnny does not laugh. He shovels his gruel into his mouth and closes his eyes as though the taste is exquisite. He must not have eaten any real food during his coma.

We picnic on the throw rug between our beds. Johnny is still in his pajamas. Considering how famished he is, I forgo my own breakfast and give him the second bowl of oatmeal as well as the cashews, dried apricots, two apples, and two muffins I brought from the cafeteria. While he eats, he leans back against his bed and gives an occasional loud belch because his digestive system is not used to food yet.

I eye his scalp through his short hair. Like me, he has no scar from a bullet wound, which must mean that Zig can double as a plastic surgeon.

“I wonder if my damn picture’s up in the school lobby,” he says. He reminds me that when Oscar Stanley was hit by a car last year, his school photograph was blown up and put in the glass showcase with a giant get-well-soon card. “Your picture must be there too,” he says.

In my most recent school photograph, I wear a T-shirt printed with this Albert Einstein quote: “Education is what remains after you forget what you learned at school.” In fact, I would be surprised if Mr. Plumb, our principal, called attention to this quote. I would be surprised if the school paid homage to me at all. I expect my classmates deemed me expendable. “Well, if one of us had to bite the dust, better it be Boo,” they probably said. Johnny Henzel’s death, however, must have caused plenty of sorrow, since he was a good athlete and a good artist.

I rise from our throw rug, go to the window, and push back the drapes. Because Johnny arrived late at night, he did not get a good glimpse of Town, and so I wave him over. He comes to stand beside me, and as he stares from our third-floor window, he says, “This place looks a little run-down, a little like Armpits.”

Armpits, as you know, is the derogatory name some people give to the Sandpits Apartments. It is true that Town is a land of low-rises like Sandpits. “Everything here is very plain and serviceable,” I tell Johnny.

“So it’s no land of milk and honey.”

“No, it’s not. In fact, we don’t receive either milk or honey here. Zig seems to be a strict vegetarian.”

Johnny shakes his head in disbelief. “Thelma told me we’re stuck here for fifty f*cking years,” he says. “And then we croak all over again.”

I tell him some townies even claim that, in the seconds before redeath, we age fifty years all at once.

His eyes go wide.

“I say poppycock till someone shows me proof.”

If only I had a movie camera to film fifty-year-olds in their sleep. There are so many experiments to conduct here.

“What if I fall out this window?” he says, looking down at the brittle shrubs and dandelions gone to seed in the Frank and Joe’s front lawn.

“You’ll probably survive and be carted off to the infirmary.”

I recently visited the Meg Murry Infirmary again to collect data on healing times for broken arms and legs. I explain to Johnny that because we mend quickly, some townies act irresponsibly. They ride their bicycles too fast and suffer nasty collisions.

Johnny watches people on bicycles zip by in the street below. He seems almost hypnotized by the procession. I wonder how I will adapt to his presence. I am not used to sharing my space and must already fight the urge to make his bed so it is as tidy as my own. I hope he does not leave his underwear on the floor, clutter his desk with garish knickknacks, or hang color-by-number posters on the walls.

“What happens if we kill somebody, Boo?”

I figure he is worried about getting shot again, so I say, “I doubt there are any handguns here, Johnny.”

He turns to me at the window. He is only a foot away. I prefer to keep two feet between me and another person, so I step back.

“I wonder if he’s here,” he says, looking me straight in the eye. His irises are so dark his eyes look all pupil. I know immediately whom he is referring to.

“Thelma says Zig wouldn’t let him in,” I say. “But the thought did cross my mind that maybe she is mistaken.”

“If Gunboy is here, he’ll pay the price for turning us into frigging bones in a coffin, man.”

“What price is that?” I ask.

Johnny touches a fingertip to his eyelid and then reaches over and tries to touch one of my eyelids, but I jerk away.

“An eye for an eye,” he says.