on all the others since the night of Adam’s death—he could see the car descending and hear its door open and close as someone got on downstairs.
He watched as it came back up.
As it passed the third floor, Dr. Engersol looked out at him through the brass mesh that enclosed the car, nodded, then disappeared as the car moved up to the fourth floor and clattered to a stop.
Josh waited until he heard Dr. Engersol leave the car, then pressed the button that brought it back down to the third floor. At least I won’t be able to hear the elevator from my new room, he thought as he hauled the box into the little car.
But it wasn’t his room, he realized as he dropped the box on the bed a few moments later. It was still Adam’s room.
He hesitated for a minute, wondering if it was too late to go to Hildie and tell her he’d changed his mind, that he wanted to keep his old room. Then he decided he was being stupid. It was just a room, and it wasn’t as though Adam had actually died there. The thought alone made him shudder, and he determinedly told himself not to think about it anymore.
But what would happen tonight, he thought again, when he had to sleep here?
He decided not to think about that, either. He began unpacking the box, putting his clothes away in the chest, stacking the books on the shelves that now hung on the wall above the bed, since he and Hildie had rearranged the room. As he put the last of them away, he eyed the shelves suspiciously. If they collapsed during the night, everything on them would crash down onto the bed. Maybe tonight he’d find a screwdriver and move them over so they’d be back above the desk again.
Taking the empty box with him, he started down the wide hallway toward the stairs. Just as he got to the landing, he heard a mewing sound, then felt Tabby pressing up against his leg, his back arched, his tail standing straight up.
“Can’t you find Amy?” he asked. The cat mewed again, and Josh, setting the empty box down on the landing, picked him up and took him into the other wing of the floor, where Amy’s new room was.
“There you are!” Amy cried as she opened the door. The cat instantly leaped from Josh’s arms into her own. “Where were you? I kept calling you, but you didn’t come!”
The cat slithered out of the little girl’s arms, dropping to the floor and stalking the room suspiciously, inspecting every corner as if he was taking inventory. Apparently satisfied, he jumped up onto Amy’s bed, curled himself up on the pillow, and promptly went to sleep. “Isn’t this neat?” Amy asked. “These rooms are so much bigger than the ones upstairs. I just love it.” When Josh said nothing in reply, her happy grin wavered, then faded away. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m in Adam’s room,” Josh explained. “It’s kind of creepy.”
Amy stared at him. “They put you in there?” she breathed. “I’d hate that room. I’d never be able to go to sleep.”
Josh felt himself flush as Amy spoke the thought he’d had only a few minutes earlier. “It’s not that bad,” he told her, but Amy, her smile returning, saw right through him.
“It is, too,” she teased. “And I bet he comes back tonight. I bet there’s something in his room he forgot, and he’ll come for it, and when he finds you—”
“Amy!” Josh broke in. “Stop that!”
“Josh is a scaredy-cat, Josh is a scaredy-cat!” Amy singsonged.
“I am not! All I said was it was weird. I didn’t say I was scared!”
He turned and stomped out of the room, and in the sudden silence, Amy realized what she must have sounded like.
Just like all the kids who had teased her all her life.
“Josh?” she called out, running after him, leaving her door standing wide open. “Josh, wait up. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”
Josh, at the head of the stairs, paused, her taunting words still burning in his head. “If you didn’t mean it, how come you said it?” he demanded.
“I was just kidding,” Amy pleaded. “Don’t be mad at me. Please?”
For a second Josh was tempted to ignore her, to turn his back on her and just walk away. But then he, too, remembered how it had been at school back home, and he relented.
“It’s okay,” he mumbled. “Just don’t tell any of the