Dad reached out to Jack, but his hand floated upward of its own accord. His eyes followed his hand, and his neck began to roll backward. Then, with the first lancets of morning light poking through the chinks of the steel shutters and jabbing the counter on which was propped a framed milk carton photo of the brother lost forty-five years earlier, my dad, Jim Sturges Sr., originator of the Band-Aid method of glasses repair and uncredited inventor of the Excalibur Calculator Pocket, fainted.

31.

Eighty-eight percent. Pinkton had drilled the number into me for weeks. The math test was the next day, and that was the grade I needed. But all I could do was apply the merciless percentage to other events in my life:

Eighty-eight percent chance that I would not be playing Romeo.

Eighty-eight percent chance that Tub would never speak to me again.

Eighty-eight percent chance that Gunmar the Black would return.

Eighty-eight percent chance that I would die upon the field of troll battle.

Eighty-eight percent chance that Dad had lost what was left of his mind.

I’d left Dad and Jack in the living room. Dad’s unconscious body had been transported to the sofa before I threw myself in the shower for a quick rinse. By the time I emerged with a fresh set of clothes, Dad was awake but hunched on the edge of the sofa, facing away from Jack and whispering to himself that he was being tricked, someone was trying to trick him. Jack, looking young and innocent in my baggy hand-me-downs, gave me a distraught look. Would Dad call Sergeant Gulager? Principal Cole? Would he find some way to prevent me from trollhunting just a single day’s time before the Killaheed’s completion?

Jack wanted me to blow off school and help him with this brother situation—it was well outside of his comfort zone of hunting and killing. But I found the reunion of long-lost siblings too intense, too personal. At least at school I could lose myself in the Steve-Smacking clamor of kids with nothing on their minds beyond the game the next night. I grabbed my backpack and didn’t look back until I’d caught the bus.

With Pinkton’s 88 percent ringing in my ears, I made a pit stop at my locker for my math book. I found myself longing to trash-compact myself, just so I could take advantage of the privacy for a nap. It was while I weighed the pros and cons of this plan that I heard a cruel laughter down the hall. It wasn’t enough to convince me to move. Even the smacking of a basketball failed to incite my interest. What did it were the snatches of words in that cool, finely articulated voice.

“Ten dollars is the new price,” I heard. “Inflation.”