We went slowly; by the time we reached my door Mr. Contreras was huffing up behind us with a tray and three cups of cocoa. The old man is at his best in dealing with the halt and lame. I left him roughly coaxing Robbie to drink some cocoa while I took my gun back to my bedroom.

“You must think I’m pretty weird, coming here like this and fainting and everything,” he said when I came back.

I pulled the piano bench next to the armchair. “I don’t think anything about you, but I’m about to burst with curiosity. Your sister said you’d run away. How did you get to Wrigleyville?”

“Is that where we are? By Wrigley Field? I’ve been here with my dad.” Some of the strain eased out of his face—if I lived in known territory it couldn’t be as scary as he’d been thinking. “I came how Nicola used to—I took my bike to the bus and rode the bus to the train. But then I got lost trying to find you and I didn’t have enough money for a cab or anything, so I’ve been walking and walking, I bet I’ve walked five miles. That would make BB and Eleanor delirious with joy if they knew I got that much exercise in one afternoon.”

“Who are BB and Eleanor?” Mr. Contreras asked.

“Parents,” I explained briefly. “Baladine’s nickname at Annapolis was BB–gun Baladine.”

“He loves it,” Robbie said. “He’s such a he–man, it proves it when people call him that. Only—only I’m not. He hates that. Or hates me; he wishes Madison and Utah had been the boys and me the girl, he said if I was a girl he could dress me in—in pink ruff—ruffles.”

His teeth began to chatter. I moved over to the arm of the chair and forced some cocoa into him, giving Mr. Contreras a warning sign to keep quiet. I was afraid even a man as benign as my neighbor might appear threatening to this very tired child.

“You’re exhausted,” I said in a matter–of–fact voice. “You’re probably dehydrated too, from walking so much. That’s why your body is acting up on you. Everybody’s does when they’re overtired and then have to deal with a strange situation: it happens to me, which is how I know. Finish this cocoa before you try to say anything else.”

“Really?” He looked at me hopefully. “I thought—thought it was only because I was a—all the names he calls me.”

I supposed Baladine stood over him and called him a faggot or queer or other names that pass for insults with someone like him. “Name–calling is a horrible kind of torture, especially when it comes from your parents. It leaves you without any defenses.”