He held out the Ziploc bag with both hands. Dr. Moore leafed through the damaged journal extracts, noting the diagrams, handwritten tabs, and carefully folded pages that had survived repeated exposure to rain. She recognized some legitimate publications, though she could not verify every copied page on the spot. What impressed her most was not that a child could repeat technical terms, but that he had somehow taught himself to organize complicated information into coherent questions.
"How long have you been collecting these?" she asked.
"Eight months. Since my mom died."
"And how do you decide whether something in a journal is right?"
Miles hesitated. It was a question almost nobody had asked him, and he realized he did not have a good answer. "I compare it to other things," he said eventually. "But sometimes I only have one article."
"That's something we can teach you," Dr. Moore replied. "Because medicine isn't just knowing a lot. It's learning how to check what you think you know."
She listened as Miles described standing at the hospital's public windows, trying to understand the movements of doctors and nurses through distant glass. Her expression shifted at the mention of a child who had repeatedly appeared near the same hospital entrance after dark. Several residents had noticed a small boy lingering around the public atrium and neighboring walkway. They had worried about him, but nobody had known his name.
"Are you the boy with the journals?" she asked softly.
Miles looked startled. "Maybe."
"Some of my residents call you the window kid," she said. "Not to make fun of you. They kept hoping somebody would find out whether you were safe."
He glanced at the floor. "I wasn't trying to bother anyone."
"You weren't bothering us," Dr. Moore assured him. "I wish we'd understood sooner why you were there."
Hamilton had been listening from his chair, the unsigned future of a million-dollar check still resting on the table. He looked toward Dr. Moore. "Can this boy enter one of your programs? Some kind of observation course? I don't care what it costs."
"He's nine," Dr. Moore replied, matter-of-factly. "He can't walk into clinical areas or observe patients without the appropriate protections and permissions. But there are educational programs, supervised science visits, and introductions we can arrange. The important thing is getting him safely into school first."
Miles watched their faces move from one idea to another. He had lived for months among adults who seldom spoke to one another about him, and now three people were discussing his education as though it were a problem worth solving. Hope frightened him more than hunger, because hunger could be endured for one more day while hope could be taken away. He kept waiting for somebody to explain that they had only been excited and did not really mean it.
Hamilton picked up the million-dollar check, studied it, and tore it carefully down the middle. The sound made Brandon wince. Hamilton tore it once more and laid the pieces beside his empty champagne glass.