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following her gaze. At least I could
sound
unimpressed.
    “Yeah, it’s a building. So what?” I fought for every ounce of boredom I could squeeze into my voice. This was no child slave-labor workhouse. The silver and glass building sat almost glowing in the growing darkness. A wide spread of grass stretched out around it, and trees grew everywhere. Lampposts lit up the grounds like a ballpark. A clump of trees stood in the middle of the front lawn. Short trees straddled the walkway to the building from the parking lot. A whole bunch of trees—enough to make a small forest—stretched up tall and strong behind it.
    “Home, sweet home,” said Honey Lady as Gorilla Man pulled off the street.
    Home? Not for me. Never. Even if I had to spend the rest of my life here, this building would never be home.
    A security arm blocked our entrance into the parking lot. Through the side window I watched as Gorilla Man’s hand reached out and his long fingers punched a few keys on a keypad that hung from the end of a white, candy-cane-shaped pole. A narrow red laser beamed out to scan his retina. The gate lifted.
    With only three other cars parked in the small lot, Gorilla Man pulled lengthwise across the spaces closest to the curving cement walk that led to the building entrance.
    Honey Lady let out a little-girl squeal and gave my knee a sharp squeeze. “We’re here!” She sprang out of the car, seeming to have forgotten about her laptop. Maybe Gorilla Man would clean up after her. I followed, leaving the portable movie player behind as well. I didn’t have a suitcase to fetch from the trunk, so we headed straight up the walkway.
    A few feet in front of the wide glass doors Honey Lady pulled a remote out of her pocket and pushed some buttons. She froze for a second while a laser scanned her eye. The doors slid open.
    “Come on in, Matt,” she said, gesturing with her hand like a butler on TV.
    Okay. I had to admit, nice place. It reminded me of the lobby of the five-star hotel we’d gone to for Aunt Rachael’s wedding last summer—every surface sparkly or plush or polished.
    “One minute,” Honey Lady said. Her heels clicked across the marble floor as she crossed the wide room to what would have been the reception desk at a hotel.
    I sauntered through a grouping of furniture—sofas, chairs, end tables. The marble tops of the tables reminded me of the big marble slab Nana pulls out around Christmastime to make candy—the marble keeps the candy’s heat down. I ran my hand over the smooth top. Not as cool as I expected. My fingers slipped around the edge of the table.
    Ouch!
    I jerked my hand up to my face, holding it with the other hand. A bee sting? In here? I looked closer. A thin, brown sliver had imbedded itself in the pad of my index finger. Since when did marble have slivers? Fake piece of junk. Honey Lady was still occupied with the scowling, grumpy lady behind the reception desk—what a crab—so after I pulled out the sliver, I wandered through the rest of the lobby, discovering that all the plants were synthetic, the bright candyin a dish was glass, and the Zen water feature was a holograph.
    Yeah, nice place.
    “Okay, Matt, let’s get you settled.” Honey Lady’s rah-rah cheerleader voice drowned out the clicking of her heels as she scurried away from the desk. With that butler arm she guided me to a hallway off the right side of the lobby. The thing went on forever, like a tunnel into nowhere.
    I backed up a step. Crab Woman, behind the reception desk, barked something into some sort of speaker as she sprang to her feet, making the reading glasses that dangled from a chain around her neck sway back and forth. She seemed older than mom age, but younger than grandmother age. A second later Gorilla Man lumbered into the room and stood, staring me down, with his overmuscled arms folded high across his chest.
    “Come on, Matt.” Honey Lady wrapped one arm around my shoulder and leaned in close to my ear,