Maniac packs his things from the baseball room and wanders all over various towns in the cold. He avoids looking at the trolley trestle where his parents died near the Schuylkill River. At night, he sleeps in the zoo, in abandoned cars, or on empty stairwells; he works odd jobs for food. One night, he ends up at the Valley Forge monument and hides away in one of the small cabin replicas, waiting and wanting to die because he feels that he doesn’t deserve to have a real family. His previous caregivers haunt him, and he vows to never let himself be orphaned again.

Days later, Maniac meets two eight-year-old boys from Two Mills named Russell and Piper who are hiding in another cabin. They have run away from home and plan to go to Mexico. Concerned for their safety, Maniac lies and claims that they have won free pizza but must go back to Two Mills to claim it. He says that he will show them a shortcut to Mexico if they go back with him, and they agree. Maniac uses his prize for untying Cobble’s Knot to get pizza for the boys. After eating their pizza, they run into John McNab, the boy who once pitched the frog at Maniac, and Maniac discovers that the boys are McNab’s little brothers.