By the time Brady wakes up the next morning, he's become even more of a celebrity; his father shows him an article in a Baltimore paper covering the previous day's events, the bus driver congratulates him, and the school principal announces at an assembly that they "have a bona fide hero in [their] midst" (46).

There are, however, a few jarring notes in the otherwise happy scene. One is J.T. and Digger's determined avoidance of Brady, who assumes his friends are feeling guilty and regretful about their decision not to shout out any kind of warning. The other is the knowledge that Ben is still in critical condition. Though Brady enjoys the attention he's receiving at school, his mind keeps drifting back to the reporter's question, and he decides to talk to J.T. about it. Before he can, however, Brady's mother comes to take him out of school. 

Brady's mother, looking disheveled and anxious, asks to speak to him outside. Brady guesses that she must have bad news about Ben, but he doesn't anticipate just how bad that news will be: Ben died earlier that morning.In disbelief, Brady asks how that could have happened, and his mother replies that he must have been left in the cold water too long.