all, and coaxed a few bites into them. The twins seemed to cheer up at her attentions, even laughed a little. Luke thought of taking them aside later and telling them not to trust that smile, but it would frighten them, and what good would that do?
What good would that do had become another mantra, and he recognized it was a bad way to think, a step down the path to acceptance of this place. He didn’t want to go there, no way did he want to go there, but logic was logic. If the little Gs were comforted by the attentions of the big G, maybe that was for the best, but when he thought about those girls getting the rectal thermometer . . . and the lights . . .
“What’s up with you?” Nicky asked. “You look like you bit into a lemon.”
“Nothing. Thinking about Iris.”
“She’s history, man.”
Luke looked at him. “That’s cold.”
Nicky shrugged. “The truth often is. Want to go out and play HORSE?”
“No.”
“Come on. I’ll spot you the H and even let you have your ride at the end.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Chicken?” Nicky asked it without rancor.
Luke shook his head. “It would just make me feel bad. I used to play it with my dad.” He heard that used to and hated it.
“Okay, I hear that.” He looked at Luke with an expression Luke could barely stand, especially coming from Nicky Wilholm. “Listen, man . . .”
“What?”
Nicky sighed. “Just I’ll be out there if you change your mind.”
Luke left the caff and wandered up his corridor—the JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE corridor—and then up the next one, which he now thought of as the Ice Machine Hallway. No sign of Maureen, so he kept going. He passed more motivational posters and more rooms, nine on each side. All the doors stood open, displaying unmade beds and walls that were bare of posters. This made them look like what they really were: jail cells for kids. He passed the elevator annex and kept walking past more rooms. Certain conclusions seemed inescapable. One was that once upon a time there had been a lot more “guests” in the Institute. Unless those in charge had been overly optimistic.
Luke eventually came to another lounge, where the janitor named Fred was running a buffer in big, lackadaisical sweeps. There were snack and drink machines here, but they were empty and unplugged. There was no playground outside, only a swatch of gravel, more chainlink with some benches beyond (presumably for staff members who wanted to take their breaks outside), and the low green admin building seventy yards or so further on. The lair of Mrs. Sigsby, who had told him he was here to serve.
“What are you doing?” Fred the janitor asked.
“Just walking around,” Luke said. “Seeing the sights.”
“There are no sights. Go back where you came from. Play with the other kids.”
“What if I don’t want to?” That sounded pathetic rather than defiant, and Luke wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
Fred was wearing a walkie-talkie on one hip and a zap-stick on the other. He touched the latter. “Go back. Won’t tell you again.”
“Okay. Have a nice day, Fred.”
“Fuck your nice day.” The buffer started up again.
Luke retreated, marveling at how quickly all his unquestioned assumptions about adults—that they were nice to you if you were nice to them, just for starters—had been blown up. He tried not to look into all those empty rooms as he passed them. They were spooky. How many kids had lived in them? What happened to them when they went to Back Half? And where were they now? Home?
“The fuck they are,” he murmured, and wished his mom was around to hear him use that word and reprimand him for it. That he didn’t have his father was bad. That he didn’t have his mother was like a pulled tooth.
When he got to the Ice Machine Hallway, he saw Maureen’s Dandux basket parked outside Avery’s room. He poked his head in, and she gave him a smile as she smoothed down the coverlet on the Avester’s bed. “All okay, Luke?”
A stupid question, but he knew she meant it well; just how he knew might have something or nothing to do with yesterday’s light-show. Maureen’s face looked paler today, the lines around her mouth deeper. Luke thought, This woman is not okay.
“Sure. How about you?”
“I’m fine.” She was lying. This didn’t feel like a hunch or an insight; it felt like a rock-solid fact. “Except this one—Avery—wet the