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rolling bucket behind him down the long hallway that ran the entire length of the second floor of Dickinson High.
    There was new graffiti on some of the lockers in the west wing, and someone had spilled something slimy down the stairs from the second-floor landing. The goo was important—Caleb remembered that clearly—anything on the floor had to be cleaned up, especially if someone could slip and fall on it. Then, if he had time, he could work on cleaning the graffiti off the lockers.
    But even before going after the slimy stuff, he had to tend to all the things he was supposed to do every day, because if he didn’t tend to them in the same order every day, he’d lose track, and some things might not get done. And if
that
happened, his counselor might decide he wasn’t smart enough to live on his own after all, and send him back to the halfway house.
    And then his mother would be disappointed, and she might cry, and Caleb hated it when his mother cried.
    Telling himself not to forget about the slimy stuff, Caleb pushed his cart down the corridor, found the big, wooden doorstop, and opened the boys’ bathroom door. It was while he was sticking the doorstop under the heavy door to prop it open that he saw the dark red footprint on the linoleum. At first Caleb thought it might be some kind of mud, or maybe even paint from the art classroom down the hall, but as he followed the tracks farther into the restroom, he saw that the stuff wasn’t mud or paint at all.
    It was blood.
    And a boy was lying in the middle of the bathroom floor, with a big puddle of blood around his head, which had oozed along the grout joints between the tiles.
    “Holy Jesus,” he whispered softly, his mind suddenly spinning as he tried to remember what he was supposed to do if something like this ever happened.
    He stepped a little closer, trying to get a better look at the boy’s face, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t recognize him even if it was someone he knew because his face was all covered with blood.
    And he looked dead, too.
    But as Caleb stood staring at the boy, still trying to remember what he was supposed to do, the boy suddenly took a ragged breath and moaned.
    Either the slight movement or the sound made something click in Caleb’s mind, and he suddenly knew what to do. “If you’re ever hurt, or really sick, find a phone,” his counselor had explained to him when he was moving into his own little apartment. “Then dial 911, and tell them where you are. And someone will come to help you.” The counselor’s words echoing in the depths of his memory, Caleb dropped his mop and hurried from the bathroom to the faculty lounge, where he knew there was a telephone. He spoke very clearly, and told them exactly where the boy was, in the restroom on the second floor of the main building of Dickinson High.
    Then he went back to the restroom to see if he could help the boy, and maybe five minutes later, a bunch of people started arriving, just like his counselor had told him would happen.
    Someone was kneeling at the boy’s side, and police were milling about in the hallway. Caleb watched from the doorway, nervously twisting at his forelock. “Is he going to be all right?” he asked as two men wearing some kind of jumpsuits brought in a stretcher and lifted the boy onto it.
    “Hope so,” one of the paramedics said, handing Caleb the boy’s bloody backpack. “Here. Find out who he is and get in touch with his parents.”
    Caleb, uncertain what he was supposed to do, started to open the backpack, but even before he could look inside it one of the school’s security guards took it away from him. “Tell you what, Caleb,” the guard told him. “Why don’t I do that, and you can go call the principal and tell him he better come over here.” He handed Caleb a card with a telephone number on it, and steered him out the door.
    Caleb, grateful for the simpler task of just calling the principal, started toward the faculty lounge for