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"Want some help?" Brayden said "I used to frame houses in the summer, so I kno to handle a hammer"

It was so alien toto help--that I actually had to peek back out to see if he was serious

He was

He was just standing there, with his head hung, like a sad puppy

"I’d love your help, Brayden," Josie answered "You know, I have to say, it would be really good for all of us if you and Jake came back and participated"

"Yeah," Brayden said "I think you’re right So, put me to work…"

And he smiled He had a movie star smile

I don’t know that I’d ever seen hih In anew This, I realized, was the suys don’t need uess not," Josie said

She turned away froh And she see, Brayden," she said, going into the dressing rooot the hell out of there

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MY FOOD AISLE AT NIGHT

Josie and Brayden worked hard all afternoon and by the evening free play period, they had new sleeping quarters for us all

Josie led the little kids over They rushed in to the dressing roo froht outside the dressing roo room

The floor was carpeted and they had laid down a bunch of throw rugs over it They had brought over the beanbag chairs from the Media Department and added some more furniture There were two futon couches, a fake-fur butterfly chair and two coffee tables and a desk A lava laently oozed on one of the coffee tables There was a e and a case of water bottles next to it They had tricked it out to an absurd degree

Right next to the furniture, there was a s chairs distributed a the tables A table lamp stood on each table and two bookshelves had been stocked hat looked to me like one each of every book in the Book Departht holanced at hiht ho berserk, so I stepped inside to see what all the racket was about

Brayden had neatly re roo down the middle and berths off to either side

Josie and Brayden had Sharpied the narabbed my hand

"I found your bedrooedrooh, it read "Dean" on the door

Inside it was s end to end A locker stood on the floor On top of the locker, a s the wall, there was a shelf

And on the shelf were books

An assortment of the paperbacks fro fiction, five cookbooks I laughed at that

"Do you like your room?" Josie came up behind me

"I really do"

"You can, like, customize it any way you want I just put soht you’d like it"

"I like it," I said

"If you don’t like the hah I’m not sure it will fit in here"

"I like it just like this," I said

Fro Ulysses said sohed

"What’d he say?" Chloe demanded

"Ulysses says it’s like a train!" Max announced

"It is just like a train!" Chloe declared

Our bedrooiven their new name: the Train

The Train and its architects, Josie and Brayden, were all the talk at dinner

Josie sat with Jake and Brayden, which was an entirely new arrange dinner

At one point Brayden stretched and put his arm across the back of the booth Oldest ht back into him

Niko took his tray and sat at the table next to theet into the conversation