Some things were starting to make sense, but not all of them. I was still confused in a lot of ways. I was just one kid with a not-too-smart brain, so I couldn't be certain of much of anything. I really just wanted to talk to Adam. I wanted to let him know what I had found out, because maybe it would help him to understand more about his dad. But Adam was nowhere. Not the rest of the day after I'd talked to Dylan, and not the following morning either. Day four since he'd been missing came and went, and when day five came, the news was starting to say that the cops didn't have much hope of finding him alive. I stopped turning the TV on. I didn't care about what they had to say—I knew Adam was alive. His disappearance was the biggest story in Goldenrock since the time I'd been in fourth grade and some guy had shot his brother in the leg because he'd lost a game of pool. Goldenrock wasn't a very busy place, so when things happened, they were really, really talked about. Adam was in the paper and on every channel. People were still organizing search parties, and police in neighboring counties had been called and put on alert for the missing kid. One policeman even came to our house to interview me about what I knew (which was, of course, nothing).

I still didn't know how to feel about all of it. I was so angry at Adam for doing this to his mom and to me, but I was also getting very worried. That panic in me was getting bigger every day, and after what Dylan had told me, I was dying to find Adam and just talk to him. But that didn't seem like it was going to happen, so I did the next best thing. I decided to talk to his mom.

When I got to Adam's house, I saw cops on the front porch talking to each other. For half a minute, I was afraid they wouldn't let me inside. They did eye me suspiciously as I went toward them, but fortunately Mrs. Nyler was standing near the doorway and saw me. She came out onto the porch and before saying anything, hurried down the stairs and hugged me like I was Adam. It was really weird. Then she let go and held me at arm's length, saying, "It is so good to see you, Cole." I saw the dried evidence of crying on her cheeks. She looked the worst I'd ever seen her, even though she was still real pretty for a mom. "Come inside. Let's talk."

So in I went with her, and we sat on the sofa and she got me some lemonade. At first, I didn't know what to say, so she started off by telling me what the progress of the searches was. Really, there wasn't any progress, but she tried to act like there was. She asked me if I had any idea where Adam could've gone, and I had to tell her that I didn't. That was hard to do.

"Can I ask you something, Mrs. Nyler?" I said. She nodded with a forced smile. I had to think of exactly how to word what I wanted to say. I had to be careful not to say the wrong thing. "Why . . . why did Adam's dad leave?" I couldn't let her know that I knew things. Then she'd ask me too many questions.

Taking in a large breath, Mrs. Nyler looked sort of confused. "That's sort of an odd question," she said. I didn't say anything, hoping she'd answer me anyway. And she did. "It was quite a while ago," she went on in a flustered sort of way. "My husband was involved in a terrible car accident. Not even I knew much at the time. Somehow the whole thing was very covered up, and Adam's father wouldn't speak to me about it. There were three deaths, I remember, and he was the only one who lived. The papers said it was a bizarre glitch in the traffic signals. All I really know for certain is that Adam's father let it eat him up terribly, that he'd been the only survivor and his own dear friend had died. Within a month after the accident, he was gone."

Mrs. Nyler had her eyes on the coffee table. I swirled my lemonade around with my straw, not really wanting to drink it but knowing I should. "Adam didn't know that," I interjected.

She looked at me. She really missed Adam, I knew. She was so worried. It was obvious. "I never told him. I . . . at first because he was so young, and then because I kept telling myself it was too late and it would do no good to tell him. Now . . . I wish he'd known. It was only fair. He could get so angry about his father. If he'd known, he might not have felt so bitter toward him."

"Maybe he would've only been more mad," I offered, trying to make her feel better.

A small smile came out on her face. "Maybe," she said quietly.

We talked a little bit more about random things like my family and Corey's football and all that. Nothing spectacular or even very interesting. But maybe it was good because it took Mrs. Nyler's mind off of Adam. I figured she needed that. When I finished my lemonade, I told her that I had to go. I could tell she didn't want me to leave, but my own mom would worry if I didn't get home. My mom was getting weird about me. Every time I went outside, she practically made me write down where I was going and what I was doing. Like she didn't trust me anymore or something. It was annoying, but I knew she was only doing it because of Adam missing. Anyway, I told Mrs. Nyler I'd come see her again soon (she made me promise). Then I left the house, going through the back door because the cops on the porch weirded me out.

When I passed through the yard and got around the shed there, the whole long field stretched out before me. It looked really different, because they'd mowed all the long grass down while looking for Adam. I guess they figured his body might be hidden by the weeds. Now the field looked more like a very large front lawn than a cool place to run around in. I thought about me and Adam finding Pete there trying to flatten the weeds and send Mrs. Nibbles into orbit. I thought about us sloshing through the grass toward the tree house in the woods. The one where we'd found those papers and started all the trouble of reading them. That was how I'd found out about the lightning that I was now sure was in me and the truth about Dylan and so many other people.

I'd already looked in that tree house for Adam, but that had been a couple of days ago, and for some reason, I really felt like I needed to go back there. I was sure the cops had checked the woods, too, but there was some urge in me to just be up in that thing. I didn't think Adam was there, but I did feel like I needed to be there. So without giving myself time to rethink, I set off across the flat field toward the woods. The bugs had left the grass when it had been mowed down, so I didn't hear much of anything as I walked. The weather was being weird, too. It was getting darker and muggier, and that kept the birds quiet.

Into the woods I went, knowing pretty well where to go. Before I realized it, I was standing under the tree. The rope hung down, ready for me to climb up it. I remembered how freaked Adam and I had been when we'd come in the middle of the night. Adam always wanted to do things at night. He thought that made them more interesting, I guess. Daylight took away the mysterious side of things.

Standing there, I felt my eyes get hot. I didn't want to think. I wanted to get so many things out of my head. I wanted my brain to have the flu, so it could throw up everything bad and get it all out of my system. It was just another organ—why couldn't it get sick like a stomach? I had to climb. I had to concentrate on the rope instead of other things.

It was no good, though. When I got to the top and went into the tree house, I felt even more upset. Staring at the place in the dusty silence, the anxiousness in me grew stronger by the minute. And there was something in me like . . . like sadness. Sadness at so much. Things I hadn't known and ways I should've acted. What if I never saw Adam again? The last words I'd said to him were rude. The last time I'd seen him we'd argued. He'd probably left hating me. Maybe if I'd been nice to him. Maybe if I had just called him and asked him to come to Sloppy Soldiers. Maybe things would be different. At first, I'd been certain that he had just run away. But as the days were passing, I couldn't help but think about the other possibilities. Adam was miserable. He hated things. Could he have hated them so much that . . .

It was just stupid. It was all too much. I didn't want to think of everything. I wanted to go to sleep and wake up only when he was back home.

A noise came from below. Something on the ground underneath me, below the floorboards and down to the bottom of the tree. It was a slamming sound, like something was hitting against the trunk. The tree house shook a little bit, and that was enough to get me moving. I hurried out of the room with the chest in it (where I'd been standing) and left the way I came in. Looking down the tree, I didn't have a good enough view to see who was down there. They were around on the other side of the trunk and blocked from my sight. I couldn't help but feel a jarring hope that it was Adam, so instead of being afraid, I jumped to the rope and slid down it, getting burns on my hands from going too fast.

When I touched ground, though, I immediately saw the person causing trouble, and I was disappointed to see that it wasn't Adam. Actually, I was even more surprised at who it was. There, swinging her arms against the tree, was the Abominable Ham herself, about as tall as two five-year-olds on top of each other and as wide as a hippo. She was no more than five feet away from me, and I knew she could cover that ground in one step. She gazed at me with her piggy face, panting and breathless and looking like she needed to tell me something.

"I—have—to talk—to you," she said, heaving the words out from her gut.

I couldn't remember anything other than threats coming from her mouth. Pointing at myself, I said, "You need to talk to me?"

"That's what I said," she replied, calming down. "Sorry if I startled you. I couldn't climb, but I wanted to talk to you."

The Ham wanting to talk to me? At that point, I felt like nothing could startle me any more. I'd heard too much over the past few days to feel shocked. "You already said that. What do you need to say?" Maybe talking to her would get my mind off Adam.

Taking large breaths, the Ham said, "It's about your friend, Adam."

So much for her getting my mind off him.

"First, let me explain something. I'm a watcher."

I was about to roll my eyes like she was nuts, but then I remembered her story. About her being a bully who was bullied. About her crying to herself. "What is that?" was what I said.

"I watch people. It was me who saw you and him in the cemetery. I startled you then, though I didn't mean to. I also know your friend was there some while ago, when your house was sabotaged." She saw the question in me. "It was because I was outside that night. I am outside almost every day and every night, though you may not see me. I like to study people. I like to see what they are like. I do not know them otherwise, because no one will speak to me. If I did not watch, I would never see goodness in people, because they are not good toward me. But I watch them be good toward one another. I watch them show good toward their families. Their friends. I watch often, though you may not see me. I have observed many acts of kindness, and so I have been able to tolerate the unkindness shown toward me."

I had no idea where she was going. This was about the last thing I would have ever expected to happen: the Ham talking to me like I was her diary, telling me a bunch of weird junk about watching people. It kind of creeped me out, actually. "Yeah, so get to the point," I said as nicely as I could. "What does that have to do with Adam?"

"I watched when he left. I saw where he went."

Something like a small frog jumped inside me. "You know where he is?"

"No," she hurriedly added in her monotonous voice. "Not where he is, where he went."

"Fine! Tell me!" I took a step toward her.

She sighed. "I watched him go to the McDermott house that day he left. To Troy. That is all. I do not know where after that."

For a minute, I figured that that knowledge meant nothing. Then I realized what I needed to do. I had to go and question Troy about what he knew. "Thank you!" I cried, almost ready to give her a hug. "Wait . . . did you also say you saw Adam the night my garage was written on?"

"Yes."

I was confused. "But . . . why would he have been there? It was Dylan Doyle who did it! Adam didn't even know that."

"Or he said he didn't know it. I was watching that night, and I saw your friend Adam near your house after the vandalizing had happened. I wondered if he had been the one to do it. I didn't know about him at the time."

"Didn't know what about him?"

She looked at me with her small black eyes and wiped some sweat off her red cheeks. "He wasn't there to make a mark. He was only watching. He's a watcher too, just like me."

"Wait. What are you talking about? Watchers?"

"Right. It sounds stupid to you. You aren't like me. You're happy with things. You don't want to be someone else. You don't feel like you shouldn't be in your own skin—that you should be in someone else's. I am not like that. I have always hoped I'd wake up in the morning and be in another body. That I'd be someone people like. Someone with . . . friends. With something to look forward to for at least one day."

It was sinking in. I still was freaked out by the thought, but I understood it. "You don't like yourself so you watch other people?"

The Ham nodded slowly.

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because it might help you understand your friend. He watches others, just like I do."

I was starting to lose interest in what she was saying, now. All I could think about was getting over to Troy McDermott's so I could talk to him about what he knew. "All right . . . thanks," I said, clearly beginning to grow preoccupied. "Thanks for telling me. I . . . I have to go now. I need to find Adam. Thanks Ha—Wait. What's your name? Your real name."

She frowned like no one had ever asked her that question, and maybe no one ever had. "Elaine," she finally said.

"Thanks, Elaine." I smiled, although I wasn't sure why. I felt like I was talking to the Ham's alter-ego. It was very strange. I wanted to tell her not to cry anymore, that I'd talk to her later and not run away like usual, but I didn't. I just turned and jogged out of the woods, picking up my pace until I was running as fast as I could go, bursting out of the trees into the weird, sunless, cloudy weather, which had turned oddly cool for an August afternoon.