“What did he say?” Ron asked as they stepped through the doorway.

“Nothin’.”

They walked quickly up four flights of creaking wooden stairs to Sylvia’s room. The building was like an oven, hot and breathless. Ron was bathed in sweat by the time they got to the fourth floor. Her room was bare. The only things in it were a battered old chest, like a wooden box, sitting in one corner, and a mattress next to it, half covered by a dirty bedspread. The walls were grimy and cracked, with gaps in the plaster. A few posters and pictures torn from old magazines tried to cover up the worst spots on the walls. It was like putting a few band-aids on a man who had fallen off a cliff.

Ron stayed by the hallway door as Sylvia walked through the bare little room and into the room beyond.

“Davey’s not here,” she said. “Wait a minute ’til I find him. You want somethin’ t’ drink?”

Ron nodded. His mouth was desert-dry. He wanted to ask if there was anything to eat, but decided not to.

Sylvia led him into the “kitchen,” an even tinier room, blazing hot, without any windows at all. There was a shelf built into one wall and a shaky-looking chair next to it. On one side of the shelf sat a stubby little refrigerator.

Sylvia opened the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic bottle of juice. “Here, have some of this while I find Davey.”

She handed Ron the bottle. It was warm. The refrigerator wasn’t working. He looked around for a glass. There were none. The only thing on the shelf next to him was a dead insect, reddish and ugly-looking, curled on its back with its thin legs poking stiffly upward.

“I’ll be right back. He’s prob’ly downstairs, playin’ with some of the other kids.”

She left. Ron sat on the chair. It groaned as his weight settled on it. The juice bottle felt sticky. He got up and opened the refrigerator. There was nothing else in it.

The heat was awful. Ron felt sweat trickling down his face, his neck, his ribs, arms, and legs. He looked around again for a glass, a plastic cup, anything. No chance. Finally he rubbed the lip of the juice bottle with the torn edge of his not-very-clean sleeve. Then he took a long swallow of the juice.

It tasted funny. Different. But wet and good.

He took another drink, then walked out into the bigger room, still holding the bottle in his hand. Maybe there was a window he could open. His head was buzzing and his eyes were starting to feel very heavy.

The heat, he thought.

Ron stood in the middle of the room and stared at the posters on the walls. They were moving! Shimmering, the way water sparkles when sunshine strikes it. Ron blinked at the posters and tried to shake his head. For the first time since Dino’s guys had beaten him, his body felt fine—no pain at all, everything loose and warm and good. He was floating, weightless and happy. He heard himself laughing. The posters were floating now, too. Swirling around his head, colors shifting and glowing and everything going around and around and around . . .