Henry comes to school the first Tuesday. Mrs. Walker didn't let me see him Sunday. “He's too tired, Charlie,” she said, “and we want to make sure he gets better sooner rather than later.” He looks worse than I remember – his eyes are in dark holes and soft-colored, his skin is tight like pulled leather, and his arms are thinner, gangly. Ms. Lewis introduces him back like he's a new student like Donald was over a year ago, reminding us that we shouldn't overwhelm him with questions. He goes to sit down, and he looks at me. I wave at him. His nose wrinkles for a second, and then something clicks in his head. Henry's eyes go big, and he leans over a little.

Ms. Lewis starts teaching. We go into history first. We're finishing up the Revolutionary War. Henry watches everyone. He doesn't look lost, but more confused by everything. He stares when someone raises their hand. He doesn't remember what we were learning before he went missing.

“What do you remember?” asks Ms. Lewis.

“It's...fuzzy,” he says, staring at her. “Everything in my head, it's like it was swallowed up by something, maddening, and dripping with misery. I can't get to it. Maybe I'm too scared to. Have you ever felt that, ma'am?” His face is stone.

Something crawls up my back. Maybe he really knocked his head hard.

Ms. Lewis raises a brow. “My, how descriptive,” she says. “I await to read what you write for our next literature assignment.”

That isn't the answer he was waiting for, because Henry's eyebrows push together, confused. He looks around like someone feels the same way, but everyone's either watching him or Ms. Lewis.

Mary McKenzie reads the chapter of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for everyone. She smiles through it, and she holds the class steady for the entire time.

He looks at me a lot. I tell him to stop distracting me, but he just stares, watching me.

By lunchtime, everyone wants to sit with him. They want to know what happened without asking, but Henry smiles – and it looks weird, his lips hanging like a shuffled picture, like he doesn't really remember how to smile – and sits in the center of the room. His face is stretched from all the attention. He doesn't shy away from it. He leans in and runs his words until they're hot.

After school we walk home together. “Hey,” I say. He looks at me as we go down the front steps of school. I look at the train station at the end of the street. “The train's late.”

“So?”

I stare at him. “Did you really bang your head that hard?” I ask. “The witch says you tried to steal her gold.” I turn back to him, but he's staring at the tree on Broad Street, like it's about to attack us.

“Hm,” is all he says. He doesn't talk to me for the rest of the way home.