I didn’t say anything when we got home either. Anika was still in her room, Pop in his apartment, and Luca not yet back from work. Nobody asked us where we’d been, because they didn’t even know we’d been gone.

And nobody wished Sam a happy birthday. Not once, not all day.

So I knocked on his door that night.

“Yeah?”

I went inside and closed it behind me, keeping my hands behind my back. He was lying on his stomach in bed, playing on his Game Boy Pocket.

“Pretty crap birthday, huh?” I said.

He sat up and shrugged. “At least it’s nearly over now.”

Just as Sam predicted, his dad hadn’t called either, so I could see why he’d rather just forget the whole thing.

“Well, before it is over, I just wanted to give you this. . . .” I pulled my hands out from behind my back and thrust the parcel at him. It was covered in newspaper, the closest thing to wrapping paper I could find around the house.

Sam got up off his bed to take the parcel from me. I hadn’t even used sticky tape, so I watched as Sam unfolded the newspaper to reveal the two books within.

He read from the covers: “A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, Book the First and A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room, Book the Second. . . .” Then he turned the books over and over again, looking at the covers with mysterious drawn-figures and ornate borders. Even the author’s name was strange and otherworldly: Lemony Snicket.

“They’re brand-new, promise! I got the first one ages ago but never read it, and the bookstore had the second one in when Pop took me there a few weeks ago. . . .” I bit my bottom lip, watching Sam turn the books over again and trace the lettering of the name with his fingertip. I worried that he’d think it was silly or maybe he’d get even more upset that I was gifting him books I’d bought for myself and was passing off to him. . . .

“Look inside!” I said, and then instantly regretted it, in case he wasn’t the type of person to write in books.

“‘To Sam,’” he read, “‘Happy eleventh birthday, Love Fred—1999.’”

I also blushed when he read the “love” bit, but I wrote it in the first one without really thinking and then just did the same for the second book too.

“See? They’re properly yours! And because my pop has this idea that books should look loved and have, like, marks in them to remind you of when you first read them. Does that make sense? He always writes that in the top corner of the books he gives me for birthdays and Christmas and it always makes me happy to remember how they came to me, and to see his writing when I open them again. . . .”

“Fred?”