"No, I want to," Liz answered.

Maria returned her attention to the dream. Its scene shifted abruptly as sometimes happens in dreams, and Mrs. Ortecho was standing in a kitchen. She opened the fridge and pulled an egg out of the carton. She wrapped her hands around it, as if she was trying to give it some of her warmth.

Then instantly she was back at the lake, climbing up toward the nest with the egg still cradled in her hand. A branch broke under one of her feet. Mrs. Ortecho faltered. The egg fell from her hand, fell straight down into the lake.

The water turned red and began to bubble. And a girl shot up from the depths, drenched in blood. She flew straight at Mrs. Ortecho, her hands curved into claws.

Mrs. Ortecho screamed, and Liz jerked away from the orb. "That's enough," she exclaimed.

Isabel reached out and lightly touched the orb. She hummed until it shrank down to its former size.

"Are you okay?" Maria asked Liz. "Pretty horrible nightmare, huh?"

"That girl. I think it was Rosa," Liz explained, her eyes glittering with emotion.

"Are you sure? I couldn't see her face with all the-" Maria stopped herself before she said the word blood.

Liz shook her head. "It was her," she insisted. "It's been five years since she died, five years, and my mother's still having nightmares."

"Probably only once in a while," Isabel said. "And once in a while isn't necessarily bad. Dreams help people process things."

"I guess," Liz mumbled.

Maria glanced over at Isabel. "Let's go out for a while."

Isabel closed her eyes and focused. The dream plane disappeared, and they were sitting on the floor of Isabel's bedroom once more.

"Sorry you didn't get your turn," Liz told Maria.

"It's okay. The orb I really wanted to visit wasn't there." She dropped back her head and gave a loud sigh. "I have a confession to make to you, my sister friends. I wanted to go into Michael's dream."

"Shocking," Isabel exclaimed, with exaggerated mock surprise.

Maria whirled around to look at Liz. "Did you tell Isabel?" she demanded.

"She didn't say anything. But I have eyes. And my eyes have seen your eyes looking at Michael in that way," Isabel answered. She glanced at the clock. "Michael and Max and I only need a couple of hours of sleep. He won't be hitting dreamland for quite a few hours. You should stay over, both of you, and I'll take you in when it's late enough. I have pajamas and stuff you can borrow."

"I guess we could get up early enough to go home and change before school," Liz said. "But I have to call home and check," she added. Isabel reached over to her night table and pulled down the phone. She handed it to Liz, and Liz quickly punched in the number.

Maria tried not to listen. It always made her uncomfortable to hear Liz asking for permission to stay out later than planned or to go someplace outside of town. Her dad asked her a billion questions, like he didn't trust her. Which was so unfair.

Liz was an unnaturally perfect girl. Never let her grades slip. Totally responsible when she was working at the cafe. Did stuff around the house. Didn't drink. Didn't smoke. Didn't do any of the things that parents worried their kids were doing.

Mr. Ortecho was basically a good guy. Maria liked working for him. But she wished he'd start cutting Liz some slack. Just because Rosa had overdosed didn't mean anything like that would happen to Liz. And he should know his own daughter well enough to see that.

Liz hung up and passed the phone to Maria. She made a quick call to her mom, who said immediately that she could stay at the Evanses'. Big surprise. Maria knew the boyfriend was over, and they were happy to have a little more private time.

"You want to watch a movie or something until it's late enough to go back to the dream plane?" Isabel asked.

"Sure," Liz answered. And Isabel started rattling off the choices.

Maria thought it was cute how Isabel tried so hard to be a good hostess. Izzy didn't have a lot of girlfriends, and it seemed as if it was really important to her to get in some good girl bonding tonight.

"Is that okay with you, Maria?" Isabel asked.

Maria hadn't been listening. Whatever movie they picked was fine by her. She thought of the movie as a countdown until it was time to go into Michael's dream orb.

By the time they'd reached the closing credits, Maria felt a whole flock of butterflies flapping in her stomach. She took Isabel's hand and again stepped into the place where the glistening, singing orbs whirled.

He'll probably be dreaming about something completely doofy, she thought. Like dancing hot dogs. Something that wouldn't have anything to do with me. Well, unless you believed some of those dream interpretation books.

Maria heard the deep sound of Michael's dream orb. Her butterflies gave birth to more butterflies as Isabel called it over and coaxed it to expand.

Without giving herself time to do any more agonizing, Maria stepped through the soft, wet surface, Isabel and Liz right behind her.

She felt a fist tighten around her heart and squeeze. Michael definitely wasn't dreaming about dancing hot dogs. He was dreaming about having his arms wrapped around Isabel!

"You want help with dinner, Mom?" Max asked as he wandered into the kitchen. He knew he should be searching for the ship again, but he was too exhausted to face another discouraging drive in the empty desert.

"You can answer the doorbell when the Flying Pepperoni guy shows up. I ordered pizza," Mrs. Evans answered. "Your dad and I have a massive case we're getting ready for. No cooking time in the schedule. Lucky you."

"Not lucky Dad, though. You know what he always says-" Max began.

"He'd rather eat the box," they finished together.

Strange how much information you stored up about your parents without noticing. Useless stuff. Dad says cardboard tastes better than pizza, eats by taking one bite of each thing on his plate in sequence so he ends up with exactly one bite of everything at the end, uses three heaping tablespoons of sugar in his coffee and prefers that no one comment on it. And that was just a fragment of the information he'd collected in the dad file under food.

Max had hundreds of these mental files. Like the Mom's childhood file. Mom used to have an imaginary best friend named Solly, a real best friend named Annabelle, and a doll like the one Buffy had on Family Affair, Mrs. Beasely, that was the doll's name.

And it felt important that he knew these fun facts about his parents. Or at least that somebody knew it. And that somebody would go on knowing it after they were… gone.

But that somebody wouldn't be him. The days were clicking by-three of them already-and he could feel his body changing. And the chances of finding the ship weren't looking too good for patient X.

What was it doctors said? You should think about making arrangements. Yeah, that was it. Max had the feeling that old patient X should be making his arrangements.

And that included talking to Michael and Isabel and the others. He would have to do that. He really couldn't wait much longer.

The only good prognosis for patient X was that he was feeling less scared, less angry, just less of everything. Patient X had become a bubble boy. The moment Ray had told Max about the akino, it felt like a thin layer of plastic had formed around him. And every day the plastic got thicker, creating a barrier between him and everyone and everything else, even his feelings.

Maybe the oxygen in the bubble had some kind of anesthesia mixed in with it, too. Because Max or patient X or whoever didn't care that he was a bubble boy. He didn't care that he and his mom were talking through a wall of plastic. He was having trouble caring about anything.