“He doesn’t ever seem to go back to someone,” said Jackson. “Like, once he’s bored with picking on you, he always moves on to someone else.”

Then why did Carmen avoid me the other day? Héctor wondered.

Aishah sighed. “It’s not like we can sit anywhere else.”

“Yeah, and we don’t care,” said Jackson. “He can’t make things worse than they already are.”

Héctor smiled at that. He was glad that these people weren’t going to ditch him. Maybe they could become his friends.

But he also hoped Jackson was right. Because he really didn’t want things to get worse.

Chapter Seventeen

It figured that on this of all days, Mr. Holiday, the gym teacher, had to keep everyone past class. “Extra laps are good for your health!” he yelled, holding up his stopwatch. “Two more before we’re done!”

Héctor took the quickest shower of his life in the locker room. His black hair was still wet as he made his way to the other side of the building.

Because of this disastrous delay, Héctor only had a few minutes to make this work before his papi arrived to pick him up. Thankfully, Papi had a tendency to be late. He worked at home, and it made him forget how the concept of time worked most days.

So Héctor sped through the hallways, but immediately crashed into his own overwhelming sense of doubt. He froze as other kids poured around him, like he was a stone in a river. Could he summon the Room? How was he supposed to find it? There wasn’t any pattern to when or where it showed up. It appeared in random hallways almost every time.

But he needed the proof. He wasn’t sure why that was the case, but the idea that he had just imagined all of this felt devastating. No, Juliana had to be real. The Room had to be real.

It just had to be.

Héctor turned the corner, his breath caught in his throat. Please, he thought. It has to be there. I need this.

The hallway was lined with doors on either side, all of them the same.

Except one.

He rushed forward, relief flooding his body, and something like a spark flew up his arm when he touched the handle to the door that read JANITOR.

I am more excited to see a door than most people, Héctor thought. Maybe it was weird, but these past couple weeks had been strange enough as it was.

He swung the door open.

Juliana stood up from the couch.

And Héctor knew then that this was real.

It was real.

“Yo,” said Juliana. “Sorry, I thought I was late.”