Steam was puffing up behind her. Darrell had cooked us hot dogs for supper. He cut them all up on a plate with ketchup, and me and Shar stuck our forks in them. We smeared the ketchup all around and laughed. But the hot dog water was still boiling. He forgot to turn it off. The window behind it was gone foggy.

“I don’t want to,” I said.

“What a wimp.”

“We’re not allowed to touch his stuff.”

“Darrell says I can.”

“No he don’t.”

“You’re scared.” Shar was wearing a pink puppy sweatshirt. Some of the puppy was flaking off, and now it only had three legs.

“Am not scared.”

“Don’t you want to talk to Rowan?”

I shook my head.

“I mean if it was my brother, I’d want to talk to him. Right, Darrell?”

Darrell was standing in the doorway.

“I’m not your brother. And I wouldn’t want to talk to a little shit like you.”

Shar laughed loud. “Yes, you would. You’d want to know if I was good.”

“Okay, fine,” I said. I dropped the book on the table. “Nothing’ll happen.”

“You’ll see.” Then she said to Darrell, “Can we go get the board?”

He picked at his earring. “Uh. Yeah. Sure.” He went over and turned off the hot dog water. “But don’t go poking around in my space.”

Darrell’s room was dark. Stuff was everywhere. Crumpled-up papers and lumps of clothes and plates with food still on them. Their dog lived out in the yard now in a small gray house so he couldn’t help clean up. There was a red pillowcase stuck onto the wall with thumbtacks. Maybe there was a window behind it. It smelled like old milk in there. Not horrible. A little bit like Rowan’s room. I kept Rowan’s pillow hidden in my closet and sniffed it sometimes. But only when I really needed to though. I didn’t want to use it all up.

On the night table, Shar found a tiny glass with stripes. Then she put a wooden game on the floor and turned the glass upside down on it.

“Can we play in here?” I asked.

“He don’t care,” Shar said. “He’s gone to the toilet. Sometimes he’s in there for an hour.”

Me and Shar squatted down on the carpet. The board was all scritched up, but I could still see letters and numbers and goodbye on the bottom. Then Shar put two fingers on top of the glass. I reached out my hand but she said, “You don’t got to touch it. Just me.”

“Anyone there?” Shar asked. The glass didn’t move. “Does anybody want to say something?” Still nothing happened.

I didn’t like this, but I didn’t want to go. “Maybe there’s no one around,” I said.