He sits down at the end of the bed. “Maxwell, actually, but that’s atrocious. Nobody needs that kind of name unless they own a country. Am I right?”

I shrug. I’m still not sure what’s happening right now. Well keeps talking.

“So, Coach Latimer said you were starting at Chickering on Monday. Listen, Lou. It’s Lou, right? Listen, Lou, don’t let them push you into dance or choir or whatever watercolor lily pad nonsense they’re painting in art. You’re taking theater. I’m in theater.” He leans in and points his racket at me. “Theater. Promise me.”

He’s bossy. And acts like he already knows me. “I—I thought I’d just take English and math and science and… the normal stuff.” As soon as I’ve said it, I wonder, Is that the normal stuff? I haven’t been in school in more than a year. And it was elementary. I want Well to go away before he laughs at me.

And then he laughs at me.

“Ha, yeah, that’s because you’re normal. And that’s what normal people expect. But this is Chickering Academy.” He stops here and twirls his racket. “At Chickering,” he says in a voice that sounds like the flight attendant giving announcements, “we like our pupils to be well-rounded, multitalented individuals.” He leans in again. “Aka, you either play a sport or you join the arts.”

He wasn’t laughing at me. He called me normal. I point at his racket. “But you play a sport and do theater.”

He laughs again. I made someone laugh. I can’t even believe it. I hardly ever talked to the kids when I was in school, because I knew I wouldn’t be there long and because, soon enough, they’d see me freak out over a jump rope hitting my leg or a book slamming shut or any of the other thousands of things that happen when I’m around people my age.

Well is talking again. I force myself to pay attention.

“Yeah, I do both. Because I am the well-well-well-rounded Well.” He waves the racket around. “And because my dad makes me do both.”

The door opens, and Dan ducks his head in.

“There you are! Maxwell, I’d assumed you’d wait for me to introduce you, since you begged to stop by.”

Well shrugs.

“Maxwell is also in the sixth grade. He lives down the road. I hope, ah, he didn’t startle you,” Dan says to me. I see him thinking back to Ginger with the blender. I want him to shut up before he says anything that would ruin this. I actually want to say the words “shut up” to an adult.

“No. We’re just talking,” I say.