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opened. “Hey!” someone called. “Outta there! Git!”
    “Git yourself,” Primrose growled.
    “They’re gonna call the cops,” said David.
    “Let ’em,” said Primrose.
    David whined, “I’m tired of pulling.”
    “Oh great.” Primrose yanked the handle from him. “Big help you are. It’s what I get for bringing a baby along.”
    “I’m not a baby.”
    Two blocks later he became so sleepy he couldn’t think of anything to do but climb into the wagon. He knew Primrose would pitch a fit but he didn’t care. He curled himself around the junk and closed his eyes.
    Sure enough, the wagon came to a halt and Primrose screeched: “Out! Out!”
    He pretended not to hear.
    “Sen-sational,” she snarled. “See if you ever come out with me again.” He felt her hot, bitter breath in his ear. “Infant turd.”
    The rest of the night was a drowsy clatter. He was aware of her piling stuff all around and on top of him, but it might as well have been blankets for all he cared. Then there was a man’s voice, and laughter, and the junk was leaving the wagon, and sometime later he too was leaving the wagon (lifted out of it and draped over his windowsill), and then there was the plump softness of his pillow beneath his head.

13
     
    That was the first of many nights sneaking out, many nights with Primrose.
    David got better at staying awake. Partly because Primrose made fun of him if he didn’t, and partly because he slept later in the mornings. Primrose had a watch, and every night as she boosted him to the windowsill to return to his room, he would say, “What time is it?” It thrilled him to hear the answers: “Twelve-thirty.” “One-seventeen.” “One-forty-two.”
    One unforgettable night she said, “Three-twenty-two,” and he yelped out loud before she clamped her hand over his mouth. That was the night they had gone to the all-night Dunkin’ Donuts. Primrose, as usual, had coffee with her donuts. But this time, when David asked if he could have a cup too, she said okay. Even after adding three teaspoons of sugar and lots of cream, he still didn’t like it much. But when he thought of the look on his grandmother’s face if she knew he was out so late drinking coffee, it tasted better.
    When he finally got to bed that night he could not sleep. The clock was inching toward four. A horrifying thought occurred to him. What if he stayed awake all night long, until the first glimmer of morning? Again and again he heard his mother’s voice:
“We’ll see the sun rise tomorrow.”
He had promised himself he would never see the sun rise without her. Along with obeying rules, he believed that this promise would help bring her back.
    And so, while sugar and caffeine partied in his veins, David pulled the pillow over his head and squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for sleep. When he awoke, the sun was coming through the top of his window.

14
     
    Of course, his grandmother took notice. “David, you used to wake up before me,” she said. “Why do you get up so late these days?”
    He could see in her wincing smile that she thought it had something to do with The Sadness. He shrugged and let her believe it.
    From then on, whenever he sneaked out, a paper-filled pillowcase took his place under the sheet. Primrose smirked when she heard about it. “Great decoy. Brilliant.”
    The way it usually worked, David would pretend to go to bed a little after nightfall, still wearing his clothes. Then he would wait for the signal from Primrose. The signal was “Baloney!” Primrose thought Baloney! was much funnier that the birdcall-type signal usually heard in the movies. Plus, she was sure no one had ever used Baloney! as a secret signal before, and she liked being the first person in history to do something.
    One night the Baloney! sounded especially close. It really was. She was at the window, grinning. “Open the screen,” she whispered.
    David spent the first five minutes giggling as she pantomimed silent