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"I’m truly sorry this happened," Mary said "I knohat you ht now"

What enuine co, however, ca her hand with all the strength she could muster, and slapped Mary across the face with such force that Mary stuht her and in an instant a dozen other kids were all over Allie holding her back, pulling her down, tearing at her as if they could tear her apart

"Leave her alone!" yelled Mary, and alo

"I wish you could feel pain," Allie said "I wish you could feel the sting of that slap"

Then she turned, marched into an elevator, and took it down alone She didn’t knohere she was going, only that she had publicly renounced Mary Queen of Snots, and was not co back

Mary stared at Allie’s elevator door long after it had closed Allieof the slap Not on her face, but in her soul, where it hurt all the

She had turned the other cheek

"Go back to what you were doing," Mary told all the kids around her

"Everything’s fine"

The crowd began to split up, and soon it was only her and Vari on the desolate floor

"Why did you let her go?" Vari said "She should be punished"

"Being alone in the living world is punishh Vari didn’t seem satisfied with her response, he would accept it They all would Mary wondered if Allie had any idea how hard it was to allow Nick and Lief to be sacrificed for the sake of the other children But the Haunter had powers that Mary did not Just as it was foolish for theo there in the first place, it would be doubly foolish to atteone Before she could really get to know hi she could do about it For a asp of reht it down, just as she fought down her tears For the sake of all her children

"You did the right thing," Vari told her

She leaned over to kiss him on the head, but stopped, knelt down, and kissed hi so loyal"

Vari beamed

As Allies elevator went down, theirs went up Mary’s grief was heavy, but she would find a way to get past it The turone Soon there would be happy children playing ball and ju rope, which was as it should be, and as it would be day after day, forever and ever

In her book Everything Mary Says Is Wrong, Allie the Outcast writes: "There are mysteries in Everlost Some of them are wonderful, and others are scary They should all be explored, though -- perhaps that’s e’re here; to experience the good and the bad that Everlost has to offer I really don’t knoe didn’t get where ere going, but I do know this ain for all time is no way to spend eternity--and anyone who tells you so is wrong"

Chapter 12

Learning to Surf The sense of isolation Allie felt after leaving Mary’s do and co out in the living world left her infinitely lonely Mary could act like the living world didn’t matter anymore, but for Allie it was an ever-present reminder that she could witness, but not participate, in life For days she tried to work out a plan for rescuing her friends from the clutches of the Haunter, and as she schemed, she walked, because she had to She was like a shark, always having to stay in h she had found many dead-spots in the city where she could rest, she never lingered long Then one day, she had a moment of clarity, and she realized that she had been drawn into her own endless loop She had been walking the exact sa it not for days, but for weeks She had thought she was ihostly pattern, but she rong The sense of helplessness of it--the sense of inevitability--alive in to the pattern She almost continued in her repetitive weave of the streets, because it was easier than fighting it It had grown coht of Lief and Nick, still trapped in those barrels, that broke her out of it, because if she stayed in this rut, she would never find a way to free them

The first step was the hardest She turned left instead of right on Twenty-first Street, and an immediate sense of panic set in She wanted to take back her step, and return to her old pattern -- but she resisted, and took one more step, and another, and another Soon the panic settled to mere terror, and the terror settled to normal fear It only took one city block for her fear to fade intoanyone felt when faced with the unknown

Careful not to begin retracing her steps again, she forced herself to go places she had avoided New York was a crowded city, but there were areas that were less traveled These were the places Allie had stuck to, for she couldn’t handle the crowds that would pass through her as if she wasn’t there