“You wanted to be the cheese,” I said.“The what?" "The cheese, the gooey good stuff that fills in the empty space when a slice is taken away.”

“You wanted to be the cheese,” I said.“The what?" "The cheese, the gooey good stuff that fills in the empty space when a slice is taken away.”

“And then I did the best thing I knew to do with the strange concoction of sadness and hope brewing inside me. I prayed. I prayed for the people whose initials were on those slivers. Not just for those people, but for the cave people before them and the robot people after them. For real orphans. For all the people who have lost shoes in the road. For kids whose parents play war. For Toodie Bleu Skies and Toodi Bleu Nordenhauer, for M. B. McClean and Douglas Nordenhauer. And all the people who need to find the magic in Make Believe. That, I figured, just about covered the whole world.”

“I’d never heard of a rain check before, but hoped it was something storm rescuers bought bags of souvenirs for their kids with.”