Thought is what we’re all about, whether the shrubbery-men like it or not. We just have to use it, and not let it use us. But when it comes to my life—or the way I lived before the game totally changed—I was a man of action rather than a man of thought, so my brain was definitely not prepared to be handling dimensions beyond the standard three.

Accosting Katie in the hallway before first period was not the most effective way to approach her, but after a sleepless night, I was desperate for answers, or at least someone who understood the question.

“I got your text,” she said. “What’s up?”

“I need to show you something, and I need you to tell me if you recognize it.”

She glanced around, then looked at me dubiously, as if she half expected me to flash my junk. “Uh, sure, okay.”

I’m not an artist—not by a long shot—but that morning I did my best to sketch Tsammy, the snarling wave that used to be the mascot of the Tibbetsville Tsunamis.

“Does this mean anything to you?” I unfolded the paper and held it in front of her, carefully gauging her reaction—and for a moment, just for a moment, there was something in her eyes. Something bordering on confusion. “No . . . Wait . . . No,” she finally decided. “No, I don’t recognize that. It looks like an angry wizard,” she said, pointing to the crest of the wave, which she had mistaken for a wizard’s hat. Like I said, I am not an artist.

“But for a second you looked like you weren’t sure . . .”

Katie met my gaze, maybe a little bit bothered that I could read her so easily. “It was nothing,” she said. “Just déjà vu or something.”

“Or something,” I repeated. “‘Déjà vu’ translates to mean ‘already seen,’ right? It’s Latin.”

“French,” she corrected. “But yeah.”

“And you have already seen this. Because this is—”

“A mascot!” she blurted. “It’s the mascot of one of the other schools we play, right? And it’s not a wizard, it’s a . . . it’s a . . .”

I waited for it. And she said—

“It’s a . . . tree?”

“It’s a wave,” I finally told her. “It’s blue! It’s a wave.”

And she grinned. “Are you sure it’s not red?”

I had to give her a point for that. “Well, then it would be the Crimson Tide, and not the Tibbetsville Tsunamis.” Although the Crimson Tide’s mascot is an elephant. In what universe does that make sense?

“Tibbetsville?” she said.

I nodded and let her piece it together, hoping that this time she’d do better than “tree.”

“Our mascot?”

I nodded again. “Last week.”