“Me neither.” A pause. “It’s been great, having you here.”

“It’s been great for me,” Jake said, and meant it.

“Sometimes being the only kid gets lonely.”

“Don’t I know it…and I was always the only one.” Jake paused. “Bet you were sad after your sissa died.”

“Sometimes I’m still sad.” At least he said it in a matter-of-fact tone, which made it easier to hear. “Reckon you’ll stay after you beat the Wolves?”

“Probably not long.”

“You’re on a quest, aren’t you?”

“I guess so.”

“For what?”

The quest was to save the Dark Tower in this where and the rose in the New York where he and Eddie and Susannah had come from, but Jake did not want to say this to Benny, much as he liked him. The Tower and the rose were kind of secret things. The ka-tet’s business. But neither did he want to lie.

“Roland doesn’t talk about stuff much,” he said.

A longer pause. The sound of Benny shifting, doing it quietly so as not to disturb Oy. “He scares me a little, your dinh.”

Jake thought about that, then said: “He scares me a little, too.”

“He scares my Pa.”

Jake was suddenly very alert. “Really?”

“Yes. He says it wouldn’t surprise him if, after you got rid of the Wolves, you turned on us. Then he said he was just joking, but that the old cowboy with the hard face scared him. I reckon that must have been your dinh, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Jake said.

Jake had begun thinking Benny had gone to sleep when the other boy asked, “What was your room like back where you came from?”

Jake thought of his room and at first found it surprisingly hard to picture. It had been a long time since he’d thought of it. And now that he did, he was embarrassed to describe it too closely to Benny. His friend lived well indeed by Calla standards—Jake guessed there were very few smallhold kids Benny’s age with their own rooms—but he would think a room such as Jake could describe that of an enchanted prince. The television? The stereo, with all his records, and the headphones for privacy? His posters of Stevie Wonder and The Jackson Five? His microscope, which showed him things too small to see with the naked eye? Was he supposed to tell this boy about such wonders and miracles?

“It was like this, only I had a desk,” Jake said at last.

“A writing desk?” Benny got up on one elbow.

“Well yeah, ” Jake said, the tone implying Sheesh, what else?

“Paper? Pens? Quill pens?”

“Paper,” Jake agreed. Here, at least, was a wonder Benny could understand. “And pens. But not quill. Ball.”

“Ball pens? I don’t understand.”