“First time?”

“Well. Yeah. You?”

He shook his head and winced regretfully. Then he said, “But it was the first time I meant it.”

A comfortable silence fell between them.

Then Astrid said, “Sam, the eggshell thing: what you’re saying is that if people outside try to penetrate the barrier wall, it might be dangerous to us. And the people outside might have figured that out. It may be that only we can safely break the barrier and emerge. Maybe the whole world is waiting, watching, hoping we’ll figure out how to hatch.” She opened the cabinet above her and produced a half-empty bag of cookies. She put them on the counter and took one for herself. “It’s a good theory, but you realize it’s still not likely.”

“I know. But I don’t want to just sit here and wait for the clock to tick down if there’s a way out of the FAYZ.”

“What is it you want to do?”

He shrugged. He had a way of doing that in a way that didn’t express doubt or uncertainty but was more like a person sloughing off a heavy burden, freeing himself up to act. “I want to start by following the barrier and seeing if there just happens to be some big gate. Maybe you walk through that gate and everyone’s there, you know? My mom, your parents. Anna and Emma.”

“Teachers,” Astrid supplied.

“Don’t ruin a happy picture,” Sam said.

“What happens if you do find a gate, Sam? You go through it? What happens to all the kids still in the FAYZ?”

“They get out, too.”

“You won’t know for sure it’s a gate unless you go through it. And once you do, there may not be a way back in.”

“Astrid, in five days I vacate. I poof. I dig a hole.”

“You have to think about yourself,” Astrid said without inflection.

Sam looked stricken. “I don’t think it’s fair to—”

Whatever he had been about to say was lost because at that moment there were two noises in rapid succession. The first was a thump coming from outside. The second was Little Pete’s screech.

Astrid ran for the door, burst through, and found Little Pete curled into a ball, shivering, howling, ready to launch a full-scale breakdown.

There was a rock on the plank floor beside him.

And standing on the sidewalk, laughing, were Panda, a Coates kid named Chris, and Quinn. Panda and Chris held baseball bats. Chris was also carrying a white trash bag. Inside the bag, just visible, was the logo of a new model game player.

“Did you throw a rock at my brother?” Astrid yelled, fearless in her outrage. She dropped to her knees beside Little Pete.

Sam was halfway across the lawn, moving with a purposeful stride.

“What did you do, Panda?”

“He was ignoring me,” Panda said.

“Panda was just goofing, Sam,” Quinn said. He stepped between Sam and Panda.

“Throwing a rock at a defenseless little kid is just goofing?” Sam demanded. “And what are you doing hanging with this creep, anyway?”

“Who you calling a creep?” Panda demanded. He took a tighter grip on his baseball bat, but not really like he meant to start swinging.

“Who do I call a creep? Anyone who throws a rock at a little kid,” Sam said, not backing down.

Quinn raised his hands, playing the peacemaker. “Look, take a breath, brah. We were just on a little mission for Mother Mary. She drafted Panda and sent him to look for some little kid’s stuffed bear, okay? We were doing a good thing.”

“Doing good and stealing someone’s stuff?” Sam pointed at the trash bag in Chris’s grip. “And on the way back, you figured you’d throw a rock and hit an autistic kid?”

“Hey, step off,” Quinn said. “We’re bringing the game to Mary so she has something for the kids to do.”

Little Pete was screaming in Astrid’s ear now, so she couldn’t hear everything that was said, just snatches of angry words between an increasingly huffy Quinn and a coldly furious Sam.

Then Sam spun on his heel and stalked back toward her and Quinn gave him the finger behind his back and sauntered off down the street with Panda and the Coates kid.

Sam threw himself violently into a porch chair. For the ten minutes it took Astrid to soothe her little brother and redirect him to his video game, Sam just seethed.

“He’s becoming useless. Worse than useless,” Sam said. Then, relenting, he said, “We’ll get past it.”

“You mean you and Quinn?”

“Yeah.”

Astrid considered just keeping her mouth shut, not pushing it. But this was a talk she needed to have with Sam sooner or later. “I don’t think he’s going to get over it.”

“You don’t know him that well.”

“He’s jealous of you.”

“Well, of course I am so terribly handsome,” Sam said, straining to make a joke of it.

“He’s one kind of person, you’re another. When life is going along normally, you’re sort of the same. But when life turns strange and scary, when there’s a crisis, suddenly you’re completely different people. It’s not Quinn’s fault, really, but he’s not brave. He’s not strong. You are.”

“You still want me to be the big hero.”

“I want you to be who you are.” She remained beside Little Pete but reached out to take Sam’s hand. “Sam, things are going to get worse. Right now everyone is kind of in a state of shock. They’re scared. But they haven’t even realized how scared they should be. Sooner or later the food supply runs out. Sooner or later the power plant fails. When we’re sitting in the dark, hungry, despairing, who’s going to be in charge? Caine? Orc? Drake?”