“Have you noticed, Valentiner?” asks Scott after a while.

“What?”

“That life’s being good to you.”

“Good? You call this good?”

“Yes, you moron. It is. Listen to me. The life you’re leading is probably the most interesting of anyone at this school. I know it may not be an easy or comfortable life, where the only things that matter are eating and sleeping enough and making sure your phone’s charged. But it’s a real life, and you can be what you are and who you are. When else, other than in a crisis, does a man have a chance to show his mettle?” He squints at me, says, “My God, where did I get my gift of gab?” and gives me a wry smile. I know Scott’s right. He’s right about everything. I also know that he is actually the more brilliant of the two of us. He has real flair, greater talent, a quicker wit, and more courage.

“You look as if you’d love to give me a hug or something disgusting like that. I’m warning you, I won’t stand for any of that,” he says boorishly.

I nod and say something like, “Hug you? Dream on!” Instead I tell him about Realitycrash and insist that he meet Poppy.

The school bell rings once. We stand up. We’ve often had this kind of conversation, but something’s different this time. We are. It’s as if we have changed for good between the moment we sat down on the grass on the other side of the hockey pitch and the moment we got up again. It feels as if something has happened, as if we’re no longer children and know, for the very first time, who we might be in the future.

“One day, mon ami,” says Scott, “we’ll look back and wonder what happened to those boys. Let’s make an oath: if ever one of us becomes an asshole, trapped in his own little caged life like a hamster, the other one swears to rescue him. Okay? Rescue me if I ever become like my father. Rescue me if I marry the wrong woman, or if I ever stop being Brainman.”

I nod; he says, “No hugs, please”; I punch him on the shoulder; and we hug all the same.

Scott then presses a parcel of new excuse letters with my mother’s faked signature into my hand. I run to the main building, slip one of them into the secretary’s pigeonhole, and then I’m out of there.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER I’m taking the lift to the fifth floor of the Wellington. Passing the nurses’ common room, I hear a woman I’ve never seen before pronounce Madelyn’s name. I stop and pretend to tie my shoelace.