He lights a cigarette and takes a drag, but the smoke soon filters out of his mouth again. Then he lies back on the grass and takes some more languorous puffs. He tries to blow smoke rings. I know it gives him a head rush, but I also know he’d never admit it.

“Coming to Forbidden Planet this afternoon, mon ami? There’s a SIG.”

I shake my head.

Scott blows an unsuccessful ball of smoke. “Going back to the veg compartment?”

“Uh-huh.”

For almost four weeks now I’ve skipped not only lessons but also most of the Mensa SIGs to go to the hospital.

“And your mum seriously hasn’t noticed anything?”

I shrug.

“So what was that video?”

“I thought you could tell your dad you’re going to be the next Billy Elliot, only in a tutu.”

“With my smoker’s lungs? Who’d want to see a smoked swan?”

I don’t tell Scott that the dance videos I was watching feature a girl who can see every world but this one with her eyes open. In the videos she dances and laughs and fools around and is the most beautiful and fabulous girl in the world. She tells stories with her body. Her eyes and her movements paint feelings and forests and laughter in the air. Her blue eyes stare out at me when the camera zooms in on her face. They glow like sparks of sunlight on the surface of the sea, like a glorious summer day.

There’s also an interview with her on YouTube. I must have watched the video a hundred times, and, seeing it, my chest first expanded and then contracted.

“Hey! So what do you reckon, mon ami?”

I didn’t even hear Scott’s question.

“Are you at least coming to Kister Jones’s later?” he repeats. “He wants to do a reading at his house today. He’s invited a few fellow writers—Joanne, Dave, and some others—and he’s going to read some extracts from his as-yet-unpublished novel Slackline.”

Instead of answering, I hold up my smartphone so that Scott can see the video.

“Wow,” he says after a while. “So that’s her.” He looks at me with the cigarette stub dangling from the corner of his mouth and arches his eyebrows theatrically. “Got you there, eh? You thought Brainman didn’t realize what was going on? Didn’t notice that you were watching dance videos even in English lit? Well, who is she, when are you going to see each other again, and how come you haven’t introduced me to her? Scared she’ll immediately swoon for Brainman?”

I tell him all about Maddie. Almost everything. Not what I do when I leave her room. Every time I glance back to see if I can catch her eyes brightening, focusing, and boring a secret grin into my back. But I’m never quick enough.