"Chick, chick, chick." A soft quivering voice interrupted Ivy's thoughts.

"Who wants to play chick, chick, chick?"

He was calling to her from the shadowy space beneath the stairs. Ivy knew it was Gregory's best friend, Eric Ghent. She kept on walking.

"Chick, chick, chick…"

When she didn't react he emerged from the dark stairwell, looking like a skeleton startled out of his tomb.

His wispy blond hair lay in strings across his high forehead, and his eyes looked like pale blue marbles set in bony sockets. Ivy had not seen Eric for the last three weeks; she suspected that Gregory had kept his jeering friend away from her.

Now Eric moved quickly enough to block her path.

"Why didn't you do it?" he asked. "Lose your nerve? Why didn't you go ahead and kill yourself?"

"Disappointed?" Ivy asked back.

"Chick, chick, chick," he said softly, tauntingly.

"Leave me alone, Eric." Ivy walked faster.

"Uh-uh. Not now." He grabbed her wrist, his thin fingers wrapping tightly around her arm. "You can't blow me off now, Ivy. You and I have too much in common."

"We have nothing in common," she replied, pulling away from him.

"Gregory," he said, tapping one of his fingers. "Drugs." He ticked off a second item. "And we're both champions of the game of chicken." He grabbed a third finger and wiggled it. "We're buddies now."

Ivy kept walking, though she wanted to run. Eric bobbed along with her.

"Tell your good buddy," he said, "what made you want to do it? What were you thinking when you saw that train rushing down the track at you? Were you stoked? What kind of trip was it?"

Ivy felt repulsed by his questions. It seemed impossible to think she would have deliberately jumped in front of the train.