“Shh—not so loud!” Brendan says with mock alarm, “You don’t wanna wake the stuffies!”

Sal looks around with wide eyes. Chuckling, the man gets up from his bedside chair. It’s the hospital kind that is just comfortable enough to coax you into the worst night’s sleep of your life. “How are you today, Brendan?” he asks.

Brendan reaches into his pocket and smooths a fake mustache onto his lip.

“Brendan is good,” Brendan says, putting his suitcase on the bed and opening it up. Now I remember why he’s so annoying. “This is my friend Cham. She’s hanging out today if that’s okay with you.”

The man smiles at me, but Sal frowns skeptically. “Okay, but I can still pick first?”

“I’m gonna grab some coffee,” the man says, heading for the door. Brendan gives him a thumbs-up sign.

“Bye, Daddy,” Sal calls.

I look at Brendan, waiting for him to fill me in. “Uh…”

“Cham doesn’t know how to play, so we have to show her.” Brendan puts the suitcase on the bed and Sal jumps on it. “Go ahead,” he says. “You can pick first.”

She rummages through the items, spilling them onto the bed. There are all kinds of things inside the suitcase, from masks to polka-dot gloves to glasses with big noses attached.

“Sal will take the dragon head.” Sal puts the mask covered in dark green sequins on, and her eyes are visible through the mouth. “What will you pick?” she asks, turning to look at me.

“Um.” Again I look at Brendan for some sort of explanation. When it’s apparent there won’t be one, I walk hesitantly toward the suitcase, then take the first thing I see. The shiny plastic crown is a little small on my head.

“I’ll pick this.”

“Cham will pick the crown,” she corrects me. I look up at Brendan like Are you poisoning the youth of America with third-person speak?

“Cham’s never done this before,” Brendan reminds Sal, stroking his fake mustache. The brown hairs catch the dismal hospital light. “Can you explain it to her?”

Sal giggles and pulls the sequined dragon head up so it doesn’t fall over her eyes. “Sal doesn’t know how to explain it. It’s just fun.”

“Then let’s show her an example.”

Brendan takes a seat on the edge of the bed. Sal and I watch as he makes a pillow with his hands and pretends to sleep on it. When he “wakes up,” he’s looking at me. “Brendan is tired today. He had bad dreams that it rained coconuts.”

Sal laughs and sits up straighter. “Sal is mad today.” She runs her fingers over the green sequins covering her head. “Sal wants to go home and see her kitty, but she can’t leave yet because the rash is still there and no one knows why.”

“That’s poopy,” Brendan says, and Sal giggles. He looks at me. “Your turn, Cham.”

I adjust the crown on my head and try not to feel awkward. “So I just tell you about my day?”