After the way all the adults had been acting, Elliot would be upset if he thought she was treating him differently as well. She couldn’t admit the reason that Tad Cooper needed to go free, of course. Sally glanced at Elliot from the corner of her eye. But the pain was worth it if it meant that her plan would be successful. Her head still ached from the effort-Sally had never attempted to control her visions before, usually dedicating all her energy to preventing them from ever happening. But Sally had spent all morning thinking really, really hard and she’d managed to get a vision of when he’d leave. Instead of following the rest of the class to recess, they’d doubled back and now were waiting behind the arts closet in the hallway. “Why are we doing this?” Elliot whispered. Which left only Elliot himself to assist in her heist. And Sally’s only friend beside Elliot, a girl who she’d gone to summer camp with last year, lived in Kentucky. Elliot’s brother, Nick, who sometimes came to walk Elliot home, was too much of a dingus jerkface to ever help. Her dads would claim that, as a lizard, Tad Cooper was Mr. Her circle of potential accomplices was rather limited. To her, the problem was simple: Elliot was hurting, and for some reason their new class pet made him hurt more. But Sally wasn’t one to waste time contemplating an issue. If she had spent a few minutes pondering the issue, she might have concluded that the lizard, trapped in a glass box without any control over his life, reminded Elliot of his current situation. Sally didn’t concern herself with figuring out the root of her friend’s pain the reason didn’t matter. Sally had felt a wave of sadness come from him then, so strong that she almost broke down in tears herself even though, as a third grader, she was now too mature to cry all the time. Elliot, however, had taken a single look at the iguana’s glass enclosure and shivered. Their classmates had crowded around Tad Cooper’s tank, giggling. Davalos introduced their new class pet that Sally knew with certainty that something needed to be done. As far as Sally was concerned, nothing had really changed. She’d always planned on staying by Elliot’s side anyway, so she didn’t get why the adults kept making such a big fuss or why Elliot no longer smiled as often. After all, Sally planned to always be there to warn him. Her dads said that Elliot’s parents were worried that someone else would try to make Elliot do something, but that didn’t make sense either. Having her head hurt was fine since it meant that she could protect Elliot. She wasn’t quite certain why the Pencil Nose Thing was such a big deal: Elliot hadn’t been the one whose brain hurt for hours after, that had been Sally. But Elliot always felt sad, and a little scared, when he talked about his appointments, and that made Sally feel sad and scared too. Usually, Sally didn’t really notice her best friend’s emotions-like most seven-year-olds, she excelled at ignoring the needs of others, even when those needs were psychically broadcast.
Her best friend was also no longer available to play as often-instead, he was at the hospital, where Elliot said the doctors made him spend hours lying inside a buzzing box. Wiseman would pick him up directly from school. He didn’t take the bus home with her anymore instead, either Mr. Ever since what Sally internally referred to as the “Pencil Nose Thing,” Elliot had changed.
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