Ada rides the bus home from school with her brother, Nico. Nico has already made new friends and tells Ada that kids want to go to the park this weekend to play baseball, and he hopes their mother will let him go.

Ada warns Nico to be careful and brings up Braden Lundie, a boy their age who disappeared years earlier. Nico dismisses the fear and tells Ada she worries even more than their mother, but he offers that Ada can come watch the baseball game if she is concerned.

Ada admits to herself that she wants friends her own age but did not make any on the first day, except for Gabe, whom she does not want to see outside school. Ada then asks Nico about sleeping in his own room; Nico says he was scared and missed Ada, and Ada admits she also slept poorly alone.

Nico suggests they have sleepovers by taking turns sleeping in each other’s rooms. When the bus drops them on Locust Street, Ada and Nico get off with Spencer, who is immediately collected by his mother, while Millie is not yet home and Ada has the house keys and responsibility until she returns.

As Ada and Nico pass the house next door, Ada notices a man about their father’s age standing at a window watching the school bus arrive. The man waves and they wave back, but Ada feels unsettled by being observed.