- Victor gets to Mrs. Worthington's house, but her husband comes to the door instead. He tells Victor to come back next week… even though they owe for two weeks.
- Then he just slams the door in Victor's face. Ugh, right? Victor stands on the porch, stricken. He can hear Mr. Worthington screaming at Mrs. Worthington to get her drunk self out of the bathtub. She says something about how he's never home…
- It sounds like they're fighting and throwing things now, so Victor just backs away and heads over to Rat's house so he can hand the week's collection money over to Rat's mother.
- He rides his bike back home, and when he arrives, he can hear Mam singing from inside the garage, where she lives. When he knocks to say hi to her, she tells him that he should go back into the house to eat with his mother and father.
- Before he does, though, he asks Mam what people feel when they get drunk. She doesn't like that question at all and tells him that she doesn't know, but she does know that it puts the devil inside of people.
- He mentions seeing Ara T look through bottles for liquor, and Mam immediately gets mad—she tells him that he has to stay away from Ara T. Victor finally confesses, though, that Ara T has his knife.
- And you know what Mam does? She tells him that she'll get his knife back and that he should go to the house and eat with his parents.
- They ask him why he's so quiet, but he just says that his paper route is going well and that he doesn't have anything exciting to discuss, though of course he's thinking hard about Ara T and Mrs. Worthington.
- Back in his room before bed, Victor puts the two pieces of the dollar bill that Mr. Spiro gave him together and finds that they fit. He wonders what kind of puzzle the words "student" and "servant" are parts of. (Us, too, Victor; us, too.)