Shading her eyes, she pointed up the driveway to a grand old building made of stone. Round-topped windows stretched up several stories on either side of a battered marquee that held no letters, just spray-painted tags and rusty stains. The windows were all smashed and boarded up, and the front of the building looked charred, like it had been in a fire.

“This is the Starlight Theater,” she said. “Gran-Gran and my mom used to come to shows here, but it’s been closed for something like twenty years.”

Amos wasn’t listening. He stood stock-still, staring at a gleaming puddle, his breath coming in short gasps.

“Hey,” said Maren. “Are you having a panic attack?”

Amos’s head gave a faint twitch: no.

“Asthma?” Amos didn’t have asthma when he lived in Maren’s neighborhood, but she’d heard these things could change as people got older. “Can we please try to hurry up? Gran-Gran’s—”

“Shh!” Amos hissed. “I think they can hear us.”

Maren glanced up at the building, but it was too far away for anyone to hear. “Who can?”

Amos raised a shaking hand and pointed at the puddle’s surface, which churned with thousands of raindrops. “The people in the submarine. Look, there’s the periscope!”

“That’s not funny.” Maren wiped the rain off her face again, grabbed his elbow, and tugged him away from the puddle. He sounded almost like he was dreaming, like he’d taken one of the submarine disaster nightmares from the shop. But she didn’t understand how that was possible unless he’d been secretly taking nightmares on the bus. Which would be a really foolish thing to do.

Half dragging Amos, whose feet seemed to not want to cooperate anymore, Maren hurried toward the theater. She couldn’t see with all this rain, couldn’t think properly. She needed to get him somewhere dry and figure out what was wrong.

“PETITE AMIE D’UN OGRE MALODORANT!” came a screeching voice.

Maren stumbled and Amos stepped on the heel of her waterlogged shoe. “Did somebody just call you the girlfriend of a…a smelly ogre?” he said, glancing nervously around. “Is there an ogre here?”

“Henri, I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad you’re here,” Maren said to the general area of trees where Henri was hiding. “Is Gran-Gran inside?”

“JOLIE MADEMOISELLE,” Henri let out a furious squawk, and Amos covered his ears with his hands and began whispering to himself.