The Institute

America’s Got Talent
audition.”
“Wouldn’t even get us on 
Little Big Shots
,” George said.
“They test us until we see dots, but you don’t know why.”
“Right,” Kalisha said.
“Then they put us in this other place, Back Half, but you don’t know what goes on there.”
“Yup,” Nicky said. “Can you play chess, or just knock over the pieces?”
She ignored him. “And when they’re done with us, we get some sci-fi memory wipe and live
happily ever after.”
“That’s the story,” Luke said.
She considered, then said, “It sounds like hell.”
“Well,” Kalisha said, “I guess that’s why God gave us wine coolers and Hi Boy Brownies.”

---

Luke had had enough. He was going to cry again pretty soon; he could feel it coming on like
a thunderstorm. Doing that in company might be okay for Iris, who was a girl, but he had an
idea (surely outdated but all the same powerful) about how boys were supposed to behave. In a
word, like Nicky.
He went back to his room, closed the door, and lay down on his bed with an arm over his
eyes. Then, for no reason, he thought of Richie Rocket in his silver space suit, dancing as
enthusiastically as Nicky Wilholm had before dinner, and how the little kids danced with him,
laughing like crazy and singing along to “Mambo Number 5.” As though nothing could go
wrong, as if their lives would always be filled with innocent fun.
The tears came, because he was afraid and angry, but mostly because he was homesick. He
had never understood what that word meant until now. This wasn’t summer camp, and it
wasn’t a field trip. This was a nightmare, and all he wanted was for it to be over. He wanted to
wake up. And because he couldn’t, he fell asleep with his narrow chest still hitching with a few
final sobs.

---

3
More bad dreams.
He awoke with a start from one in which a headless black dog had been chasing him down
Wildersmoot Drive. For a single wonderful moment he thought the whole 
thing
had been a
dream, and he was back in his real room. Then he looked at the pajamas that weren’t his
pajamas and at the wall where there should have been a window. He used the bathroom, and
then, because he was no longer sleepy, powered up the laptop. He thought he might need
another token to make it work, but he didn’t. Maybe it was on a twenty-four-hour cycle, or—if
he was lucky—forty-eight. According to the strip at the top, it was quarter past three in the
morning. A long time until dawn, then, and what he got for first taking a nap and then falling
asleep so early in the evening.
He thought about going to YouTube and watching some of the vintage cartoons, stuff like
Popeye that had always had him and Rolf rolling around on the floor, yelling “Where’s me
spinach?” and “Uck-uck-uck!” But he had an idea they would only bring the homesickness
back, and raving. So what did that leave? Going back to bed, where he’d lie awake until
daylight? Wandering the empty halls? A visit to the playground? He could do that, he
remembered Kalisha saying the playground was never locked, but it would be too spooky.
“Then why don’t you think, asshole?”
He spoke in a low voice, but jumped at the sound anyway, even half-raised a hand as if to
cover his mouth. He got up and walked around the room, bare feet slapping and pajama
bottoms flapping. It was a good question. Why 
didn’t
he think? Wasn’t that what he was
supposed to be good at? Lucas Ellis, the smart kid. The boy genius. Loves Popeye the Sailor
Man, loves Call of Duty, loves shooting hoops in the backyard, but also has a working grasp of
written French, although he still needs subtitles when he looks at French movies on Netflix,
because they all talk so fast, and the idioms are crazy.