She wrapped her arms around him but she could not touch him. Some force kept her arms from making physical contact.

“Petey, no, you have to let me—”

“Ahhh ahhh ahhhh ahhh!”

“It was an accident! I just lost control, it’s just, I just, I can’t, Petey, stop it, stop it!”

She ran to retrieve his game. It was warm. Strange. She carried it back to Little Pete, but for just a moment her step faltered. The room seemed to warp and wobble around her.

Little Pete’s frantic shrieks snapped her back.

“Ahhhh ahhh ahhhh ahhh!”

“Shut up!” Astrid screamed, as confused and unsettled as she was furious. “Shut up! Shut up! Here! Take your stupid toy!”

She stepped back, stepped away, not trusting herself to be near him. Hating him at that moment. Terrified that the enraged thing inside her head would lash out at him again. A voice inside her rationalized it even now. He is a brat. He does these things deliberately.

It was all his fault.

“Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh!”

“I do everything for you!” she cried.

“Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh!”

“I feed you and I clean you and I watch over you and I protect you. Stop it! Stop it! I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand it!”

Little Pete did not stop. Would not stop, she knew, until he chose to, until whatever crazy loop that was in his head had played itself out.

She sank into a kitchen chair. Astrid sat with her head in her hands running through the list of her failures. Before the FAYZ there hadn’t been very many. She’d gotten a B+ once when she should have gotten an A. She’d inadvertently been cruel to people on a couple of occasions, memories that still bothered her, even now. She’d never learned to play an instrument…. Wasn’t as good as she would like to be with Spanish pronunciations…

“Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh!”

Before the FAYZ the ratio of success to failure in her life had been hundreds to one. Even in coping with her little brother, back then she’d been as successful as anyone could be.

But since the FAYZ the ratio had reversed. On the positive side she was still alive, and so was her brother. On the negative side there were too many failures to list, though she could recall them all, each and every one in painful detail.

“Ahhh ahhhh ahhh ahhh!”

She had intended to do so many good things. She had wanted to restart therapy and lessons for Little Pete. Failure. She had wanted to get the church fixed up and find some way for kids to attend on Sunday mornings. Failure. She had wanted to write a constitution for the FAYZ, create a government. Failure.

She had tried to stop Albert from making everything about money. She had failed. And just as bad, Albert had succeeded. He’d been right, she had been wrong. It was Albert feeding Perdido Beach now, not her.

She’d wanted to find a way to stop Howard from selling booze and cigarettes to kids. Wanted to reason with Zil, get him to act like a decent human being. Failure and failure.

Even her relationship with Sam had come apart. And now, he’d run away, abandoned her. Had enough, she supposed. Had enough of her and Little Pete and all of it.

Someone had heard it from someone else that Hunter had seen him leaving town. Leaving. Going where? The gossip machine had no answer to that. But the gossip machine was sure who was to blame: Astrid.

She had wanted to be brave and strong and smart and right.

And now she was hiding out in her home because she knew if she went out, they would all look to her for answers she didn’t have. She was the head of the town council in a town that had come close to burning to the ground.

It had been saved. But not by Astrid.

Little Pete fell silent at last. His blank eyes were focused on the game again. Like nothing had happened.

She wondered if he even remembered her loss of control. She wondered if he knew how terrified she was, how hopeless and defeated. She knew he didn’t care.

No one cared.

“Okay, Petey,” she said, her voice shaky. “We still have to go out. Walkie, walkie. Time to go and talk to my many friends,” she said sardonically.

This time he followed her meekly.

She’d meant to visit the burn zone again. To visit the basement hospital. To find Albert and find out how soon he would have food.

But out on the street she was surrounded within minutes, just as she’d known she would be. Kids came to her. More and more kids, until there were dozens of them, trailing her as she tried to make her way back to the burn zone. They yelled, demanded, insulted, pleaded, begged. Threatened.

“Why won’t you talk to us?”

“Why don’t you answer?”

Because she didn’t have any answers.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Okay! Okay!” She shoved at a boy who was in her face yelling about his big sister being missing, about her going to visit a friend. Over on Sherman.

“Okay,” Astrid said. “We’ll have a town meeting.”

“When?”

“Right now.” She pushed through the crowd, which surged around her as she led the way to the church.

Oh, Sam would get a good laugh out of seeing this. More than once he’d stood up at the altar trying to pacify a bunch of terrified kids. And she, Astrid, had watched, and judged his performance. And when the pressure of it finally got to be too much she had formed the council and tried to push him aside.

Well, Sam, she thought as she stepped onto that ruined altar, you can have this job back any time you like.