Page 72 of One Adult, Please

All of us freeze.

The handle turns. The door opens inward.

Wondie Hat stands in the entrance.

The foam mascot head fills the doorway, smiling its big cheerful sunglasses smile over a body that has no business being attached to it. The head is too large for the frame, so when Wondie Hat tries to enter, the foam sphere catches on the jamb.

Then Wondie Hat pushes harder. The foam squeaks.

The cot lurches under my hands as the treatment room wrong people shove from the front. Wondie Hat shuffles in from behind. The room has become a sandwich and I'm the deli meat with anxiety.

"Joel."

"I know."

"Beck."

"I see him."

"Grant."

"Still loading."

"I hate this clinic."

Wondie Hat tears free of the doorframe with a rubbery pop and staggers into the waiting room. The foam head wobbles. The sunglasses are still smiling. The mouth underneath is not.

Beck turns, but he can't swing. Not with me, Grant, the cot, and three wrong people behind him.

"Take the head off," Joel says.

"The foam one or the real one?" Beck asks.

"Start with foam."

Beck grabs the Wondie head with both hands and pulls.

Wondie Hat grabs him back.

"Rude," Beck says.

Grant steps behind Beck, catches Wondie Hat's wrist, and pins the arm down. I abandon the cot with one hand, keep the paddle jammed with the other, and kick the rolling stool toward Joel.

"Stool!"

He catches the stool with his foot, hooks it, and kicks it hard into Wondie Hat's knees.

Wondie Hat buckles.

Beck yanks.

The foam head comes off with a horrible rubbery gasp. Underneath is a wrong person with gray skin, snapping teeth, and a vacation lanyard still hanging around its neck.

For half a second, nobody moves.

Then Beck swings the giant foam mascot head like the world's worst pillow fight and knocks Wondie Hat sideways into the reception counter.

"That was for morale," he says.