- Victor runs inside all excited but stops dead in his tracks when he sees Mam's face. Her lip is busted, her nose is swollen, and her eyes are all messed up and closed shut.
- Before he can say anything, she tells him that she had an accident and that he should go collect his money for his paper route. She's totally okay.
- Victor asks her if Ara T did this but she won't give him any more information. He knows that she's lying about it being an accident, though—someone definitely beat her up.
- At TV Boy's house, Victor peeks through the window and sees him just watching the television without sound again and wonders how that's possible.
- He gets to Mrs. Worthington's house and rings the doorbell. She comes out with her makeup all done and says that she'll go get her handbag.
- She tells him to come inside and wait, but for some reason Victor doesn't want to. He does anyway, though, and sits down on the couch. All of his money falls out and he has to pick it up.
- Mrs. Worthington starts asking him all sorts of questions and calls him "sweetie;" there's a lot of whiskey in her glass. When she asks for his name, Victor doesn't want to stutter so he just says that Mam calls him Little Man.
- After a bit, Mrs. Worthington falls asleep on the couch and starts snoring. Unsure of what to do, Victor cleans up her glass and gets up to leave. He notices a black spot underneath her eye, and realizes that maybe somebody hit her, too.
- He feels bad for her, but Victor walks outside and starts walking home. Mrs. Worthington still hasn't paid him, but he'll just use his own money to hand over to Rat's mother. He doesn't want to bother Mrs. Worthington again today.