I fished in my pocket and handed him the sticky shard. I thought Carl was going to hide it away somewhere inside his coat. Maybe he’d think it was good luck. But he didn’t; he went to the creek and bent down. He was a boulder stooped at the edge. He mumbled, “Water will have to do. No milk. Of course I know what I’m doing, Dot. I just. I’m trying to think and do.”

He crunched back over the pebbles and knelt beside me. He had the flashlight tucked up into his armpit, and he pulled my lip down again. His fingers were in my mouth. I tasted bitterness, and I closed my eyes. Lips stretched, my jaw shook up and down and I felt him guiding the tooth down into its socket. “Urh. I think it’s level there,” he said. “Should stick.” Then he cupped his hand under my chin so that my mouth stayed closed. Held it there for a moment. Ever so gently.

“It’s going to be fine, Magic Boy.” He laughed loudly, then cocked his head. “You’re right, you’re right. Unless I got it the wrong way around.”

I ran my tongue over it. I tried not to budge it. I put my head down on my knees. Throbbing moved through my chin, out through my ears. The woods around us glowed when lightning jagged to the north. But it was far away. The storm had ended. Through the trees I thought I saw the moon. Bright and yellow and nearly full.

Carl went back and sat down next to Girl. “Sure, sure. It’s okay to tell him that,” he said. “It’s not confidential.” Girl kicked out her legs, moved her body closer to Carl. With her paw, she clawed her toy squirrel toward her. Took its pointed face in her mouth. “He was trying to get currents to move around outside wires. The man. Then the government got, got, got, urh, hold of his research. They shoot it through the air when it’s raining. That’s the testing phase.”

“Oh,” I said. I blinked. It sort of made sense, though, but I wasn’t sure. It was different from what I’d read in a science book Mrs. Spooner lent me from the library. And it was hard to think about anything with the pain. Part of me felt as though I was drifting. Floating up. I was warm. My eyes closed.

“Strange, though, urh,” he said. Carl stood up again, walked back and forth. “Stan? You think that’s proof? I don’t know, I don’t know. He’s only one, not two. Like the Workers with their books. Magic Boy did show, show, show, urh, up when they let the electricity out. Flying through the sky. I wonder…”

That was the last thing I remembered Carl saying. I followed the sound of his pacing as I was falling asleep.