Frowning, I put my hands on my hips. “Fine. On the night of the Homecoming Dance, a janitor passed some kind of superpower on to me before he died. Then I killed Dr. DuPont with my shoe, but when I came back to the bathroom, everything had disappeared and I thought I was going crazy, but then those bad guys chased us yesterday, and they also disappeared, so I’m not crazy, but there’s something super crazy going on, and I think it’s connected to you since I’m totally incapable of hurting you. That’s why I couldn’t slap you the other day even though, trust me, I really, really wanted to.”

I took a deep breath. “So there. That’s the fast version. Any questions?”

David stumbled backward, sitting down hard on an upside-down bucket, then shook his head. “I . . . I think my brain actually shut down,” he said. He braced his elbows on his knees, leaning forward with his steepled fingers covering his mouth.

“After yesterday, I thought whatever you said, I’d be good. I mean, dude disappeared. And my car magically repaired itself. I should be unshockable, you know?”

David still wasn’t looking at me, so I knelt down in front of him as gingerly as I could, trying not to touch the ground or accidentally flash him. “I know,” I told him. “It sounds insane. It is insane.”

His eyes fixed on mine. “You killed someone,” he said, his voice barely audible. “With a shoe.”

“He had a sword,” I fired back and then, to my shock, David burst out laughing.

“A sword. Our history teacher attacked you with a sword in the bathroom and you killed him.” He dropped his head into his hands, only to raise it a second later. “Wait. You said a janitor passed these powers on to you. A janitor who died. Mr. Hall?”

Surprised, I nodded. “Yeah. Had you noticed that he was missing?”

But David was pressing his face into his hands again, moaning. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

“What?” When he didn’t answer, I tugged on his sleeve. Apparently that much I could do. “What do you know about Mr. Hall?”

When David lifted his face, he was pale. “He rented the little house at the back of our property.”

I rocked back on my heels. “Mr. Hall lived with you?”

“Not with me, but more or less in my backyard, yeah. He . . . he took off a few days ago. Or at least that’s what my aunt thought. I even asked her if we should, like, report it or something, but she said he was a grown man, he could come and go as he pleased.”