Page 73 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Todd blinks. “Are you pulling my leg? Did your brother put you up to this?”

I shake my head. Theo is a good brother, and I like him third best to Chloe and Gummy Bear, but he doesn’t always see what’s going on around him. I doubt he knows anything about Jasper and Chloe and their books.

“Zach said I could come to him if I needed anything.” I hold up the book. “I need him to help me with this.”

Todd takes one more peek inside the house. When he doesn’t see anything but Gummy Bear sprawled out on the living room floor, he nods once. “Okay, kid. Sure thing. We’ll drive up into the mountains and find your friend.” As he starts trotting down the front porch steps, I can hear him mutter under his breath, “With any luck, Ravenna won’t even notice we’re gone.”

“Aloysius!”

As soon as Todd pulls his car into the dirt parking lot of the survival school, Zach comes running out to greet us. I think he must be in themiddle of working because there are a few other people in camouflage standing around, but that doesn’t stop him from dropping everything to see me.

That’s the thing I like best about Zach. Him and Chloe both. They never make me feel like I’m being annoying when I need extra help. I sometimes feel as if the whole world could be on fire, but Chloe would still be standing in the kitchen and asking us what cereal we want for breakfast.

I know that doesn’t sound like much, but when your dad leaves and your mom leaves and the teachers just keep passing you around school because they don’t know what else to do with you, breakfast matters.

Zach squats down to my level, his nose crinkled up with worry. “Is something wrong, Aloysius? Are you hurt? IsChloe?”

He says this last bit with a sharp note that makes me feel like I came to the right place.

“I’m okay. She’s okay.” I cast a quick look over his shoulder, where the camouflage people are loading a bunch of camping stuff into a backpack. “Are you busy? I didn’t think—”

Todd clears his throat from somewhere above me. “Sorry for the intrusion, but he was determined to see you. Said something about a book he needs help with. Homework, probably, so it’s no use asking me. I was never much of a scholar. Flunked English lit twice, if you want the truth of it.”

I set my jaw. As if I’d drag Todd all the way up here for something as silly as school.

“It’s not homework,” I say. “It’s about Jasper. And those notes he and the dead lady wrote to each other.”

Zach springs up to a standing position at once—and then he does the thing I like about him, the thing that makes him so much like Chloe. He nods at Todd in a way that seems to magically get rid of him, ushers me to where the other camouflage people are, and gets me comfortablysettled on a log—and all without making it seem like he’s done anything at all.

It was the same when he found me at the bottom of those rocks a few weeks ago. I was just lying there, trying not to cry, pain shooting like lava up and down my leg, and there he was. If he hadn’t smelled so much like dirt, his hands warm and strong as he straightened my bone and made a sling to carry me down, I might have thought he was a guardian angel.

Then again, maybe guardian angelsarelike that.

“Everyone, this is Aloysius Sampson,” Zach says as soon as he hears Todd’s car start crunching its way back down the road. He promised to get me home later, so I don’t have to worry about Todd coming back up here and ruining things. “He’s the young man who turned me into a local hero a few weeks ago. I owe him big time. I can’t even walk into the drugstore now without everyone coming over to shake my hand.”

I’m pretty sure he’s only saying that to be nice, but the camouflage people seem to get really excited over it. They pat me on the back and tell me how tough I am, and then ask Zach all kinds of questions about what kind of wood he used to frame the splint, and could you also use a canoe paddle if you had to, and how does canvas compare to Gore-Tex when it comes to manufacturing a sling?

He laughs and answers their questions, but not before first handing me a pouch of energy gel. He’d had some in his pockets when he rescued me and made me suck on one to keep up my strength, and even though it sounds weird—edible slime in a Capri Sun pouch—I kind of like them.

As soon as he’s done talking, he checks his watch. “Right. So everyone has their coordinates, yes?”

The camouflage people nod.

“Then I’ll send you out a few minutes early. Remember—speed is important for this exercise. The longer you leave your partners out there, the more likely they are to die of exposure.” He winks at me just in case I’m worried about that dying part. I’m not, though. He explainedhis job to me—about how he trains pilots to save themselves and their teams if they should accidentally crash—so I know this is just pretend. “Aaaand, go!”

I suck the last of the energy pouch down and watch as the men and women head off into the woods on their training exercise. To be honest, it’s kind of making me want to be a pilot when I grow up. The idea of being crashed and alone in the woods for a few weeks sounds nice, just so long as you have Zach to teach you all the things you need to know about finding food and escaping bad guys.

“Shouldn’t you go out with them?” I ask as soon as we’re alone together. “To keep them safe?”

“Nah. We’ve got this whole place rigged with deer cameras. My boss can watch everything on his computer.” He sits down on the log next to me and pulls out an energy pouch of his own. “Does your sister know you’re spending the day with me?”

See what I mean about how nice he is? Instead of asking me if I have permission to be here or making me feel like I’m bothering him, Zach makes it sound like we planned this whole thing together.

“No,” I admit. “I’m supposed to be with my mom and Todd.”

He’s careful not to look at me as he finishes his pouch. “But you don’t want to be?”

I shrug and kick at the dirt with my good foot. “Todd’s okay, but my mom tries too hard. And then she doesn’t try enough.” I pause. “Does that make sense?”