He started laughing again. “Is the condition that, urh, led to your signpost still applicable?”

“What sign?”

“Your T-H-E-I-F sign.” He winced as he said it, as if he hated misspelling the word.

“I’m no thief, Carl. Not really.”

“I’m no thief, Carl.” A piece of metal fell out of his beard and he bent, plucked it up, fixed it back in place. “I meant, are you hungry?”

I one-shoulder shrugged.

“I have another orange. All that acid dissolves your metals.”

“What do you mean by acid?”

“Vitamin C. It’s beneficial. Structures and metals are excellent blockers. Metals and structures. Solid, solid, urh, solid. Prevent government infiltration.”

He smiled then, and his teeth were not what I expected. They weren’t cramped together or missing or sharpened or full of brown decay. They were white and neatly organized in his mouth. They were perfect. Not Telly perfect, but fairly close.

“Would you care for some?”

“Um.” I wasn’t sure. Maybe he was harmless after all? He did look after his dog, didn’t he? And Girl seemed healthy enough. Then I said, “If you want to share.”

“I always want to share,” he replied.

He sat down on a rock, and without thinking too much I walked over and sat down beside him. After he’d peeled the orange and thrown the rinds on the dead fire, he cracked it and handed me half.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome, Magic Boy.”

I sucked on a segment. It was sour but good. “Do you live here all the time?” I asked.

“I do. I’m going to live here for the rest of my life. Until they reclaim me.” He looked me up and down then, scratched the knots of hair on his head.

“What about your mom and dad. Don’t they miss you?”

“My mom, urh. She doesn’t exist. Just a ghost now.” He tapped his head and shuddered. “Just a ghost.”

“Oh,” I said. That was a strange way for him to say his mother was dead. “And your dad?”

“Never had one. I just came to be. Spontaneous generation, I suspect, though it’s not notarized. No stamp, urh, no stamp on me. You, Magic Boy?”

I ran my thumb over the white spot on my other hand. “I don’t really have a dad either,” I said. “Not much of one anyway.”

“Did you make him a ghost?”

“Make him? No. Sometimes I wish it though.”

“Urh. Difficulties.”