Mrs. Pitt looked out the window to her left for a long moment as she rocked slightly in her swivel chair. "What would you do if I said, 'No, if you don't come back Monday, don't come back at all'?"

Stony felt his guts deflate. "Then I would be out of a job I really dug." He fought back the impulse to cry, staring into his lap, feeling the muscles in his face start to buckle.

"Normally I wouldn't do this"—Mrs. Pitt picked up the photo cube, idly rolling it around in her hands—"but I think I understand the situation better than you think I do. My father wanted me married and pregnant as soon as I graduated high school. I had to run away from home to get on with my life. Never went back." She returned the cube to the desk. "The kids like you very much, Stony, and I sense you like them." She smiled and nodded resolutely. "Two weeks you need, two weeks you got."

A rush of relief like a wave knocked him flat against the chair. He jumped up. "Hey, I can't tell you..." He started choking up again.

"Just be back here in my office three Mondays from now and tell me then."

***

On Friday Stony came into work in the lightheaded mood of a kid on the last day of school. In the morning, he made up three more stories, got into two heavy games of Stratego and taught the kids how to play charades. After lunch he conducted a joke-telling contest in which Derek was disqualified for poor sportsmanship (What's the difference between Tyrone and a elephant? About five pounds) and Tyrone was disqualified for obscenity (Why is Derek's sister like the Alaska pipeline? 'Cause she got laid by six hundred men across the state). Felix got disqualified for grossness (What's burnt, shriveled and hangs from the ceiling? A Polish electrician). Stony declared himself winner by default (Why can't you starve in the desert? Because of all the sand-which-is there). By the time Stony was debating the feasibility of a wheelchair race, the nurses came by to round up the kids.

"Four-thirty already?" He looked at his watch.

"Hey, De Coco, see you Monday."

"Stay cool over the weekend."

"Yeah, don't kiss any girls."

"See you guys." Stony waved. When the day room was empty, Stony remembered that he wasn't coming back Monday. He walked down the long children's ward, entered the twenty-bed room. The nurses were serving dinner. He sat on Derek's bed and spoke to him and Tyrone. "Hey, lissen, I forgot to tell you guys, I ain't comin' back for two weeks."

They stopped eating. "Where you goin'?" Tyrone frowned.

"Oh, I gotta do something with my family."

"How come?"

Stony shrugged. "You guys behave yourselves, don't fight."

They didn't answer. Stony got up, grabbed Tyrone by the ears and kissed him with a loud smack on the top of his head. The kids in the room screamed with laughter. Tyrone, giggling and embarrassed, buried his head under his pillow. Stony turned to Derek. Derek screeched and hid under the covers, waiting for Stony's attack. The kids shouted encouragement. Stony waited silently until Derek got impatient enough to pop his head out of the sheets. Stony kissed him right on the head to Derek's mortified delight. Then he strode from the room, waving to everybody as he left. "See ya in two weeks!"