Chap­ter 27: The Fin­ger unfolds in a place where the human spir­it is con­stant­ly test­ed, and where resilience is a rare cur­ren­cy. From the moment Dodo was awak­ened by Mon­key Pants, the day felt heav­ier than the last. Though Dodo had been recent­ly freed from his final cast, his mind remained impris­oned. Walk­ing among the oth­er patients showed him the harsh hier­ar­chy with­in Pennhurst’s walls. Stronger inmates con­trolled food, space, and any shred of nor­mal­cy, while the weak­er ones endured humil­i­a­tion in silence. For some­one like Dodo—young, deaf, and vis­i­bly different—this real­i­ty wasn’t just intim­i­dat­ing; it was shat­ter­ing. When Mon­key Pants tried to engage him with signs and ques­tions, Dodo was too defeat­ed to respond. The guilt he car­ried about Miss Chona’s injury and the absence of Uncle Nate and Aunt Addie weighed heav­i­ly on him, becom­ing the new cast bind­ing his heart.

Guilt and lone­li­ness merged into a sin­gle, over­whelm­ing force. Dodo’s thoughts wan­dered through mem­o­ries of minor mischiefs—stealing mar­bles, sneak­ing chocolate—and con­vinced him­self these sins jus­ti­fied his cur­rent suf­fer­ing. That night, Mon­key Pants noticed his with­draw­al and tried to reach him through their own shared lan­guage. He held out a fin­ger, urg­ing Dodo to touch it, to play their silent game, to reclaim even a small part of their lost child­hood. The ges­ture pulled Dodo back from despair. Touch­ing fin­gers between the bars of their cribs turned into a game of endurance, laugh­ter, and tem­po­rary escape. As their fin­gers held on, the ward’s harsh­ness fad­ed. Dodo found joy in recount­ing his day to Mon­key Pants, fill­ing the silence with sto­ries instead of sad­ness. The boys clung to the con­nec­tion not just as a chal­lenge, but as sur­vival. In that brief con­test of will, they became boys again—not patients, not inmates—just two friends keep­ing each oth­er alive in a world that for­got them.

As dark­ness fell, their game per­sist­ed. Despite the aching mus­cles, the soiled sheets, and the unno­ticed din­ner trays, the boys remained locked in silent resis­tance, fin­gers con­nect­ed. The shift change came, and with it, the dimmed lights and rel­a­tive qui­et of the sleep­ing ward. But sleep didn’t come easy for Dodo. The sooth­ing pres­ence of Mon­key Pants was sud­den­ly cut off—Son of Man had returned. His loom­ing pres­ence between their cribs shat­tered the frag­ile sense of safe­ty they had built. In a ter­ri­fy­ing moment, he dis­abled Dodo’s crib bars and sub­dued him with suf­fo­cat­ing force. Dodo tried to scream, to flee, to fight, but the man’s strength was unmatched. Just as the hor­ror reached its peak, a vio­lent tremor shook the ward.

The dis­rup­tion had a source—Monkey Pants. In an act of defi­ant courage, he hurled his own excre­ment at Son of Man mid-seizure, strik­ing him in the head and alert­ing the entire ward. Lights blazed on, patients stirred, and atten­dants rushed in. Mon­key Pants’s seizure had not just been a med­ical episode—it had been a life­line. Dodo’s attack­er, humil­i­at­ed and cov­ered in waste, stepped away, his dom­i­nance shat­tered. Though the atten­dants ini­tial­ly attempt­ed to car­ry on as if noth­ing unusu­al had occurred, a young doctor’s appear­ance shift­ed the tone. He ques­tioned the crib arrange­ment, the tim­ing of the med­ica­tion, and the sus­pi­cious behav­ior. Son of Man’s façade crum­bled in the doctor’s pres­ence, and for the first time, author­i­ty stood on Dodo’s side—however briefly. Mon­key Pants was exam­ined, sedat­ed, and left to rest, while Dodo lay wide-eyed in his crib, unable to sleep, dread­ing Son of Man’s return.

What fol­lowed was a night marked not by silence, but by the sound of Dodo’s own heart­beat, the pres­sure of guilt, and the raw mem­o­ry of what near­ly hap­pened. His fear trans­formed into belief—he was being pun­ished. For mis­be­hav­ing, for hurt­ing oth­ers, for sim­ply exist­ing. He thought he was in that place for life. In the dim light, with no com­fort and no way to express his anguish, the young boy began to cry. It was a sob not just of fear, but of sur­ren­der. He believed he was bro­ken beyond repair. But what he didn’t ful­ly grasp was that Mon­key Pants had, in that moment of filth and fury, saved him. That frag­ile, steady fin­ger held out hours ear­li­er wasn’t just a child’s game—it had been a bond stronger than the bars of the cribs that held them. And though Dodo felt lost, he had not been alone. That finger—briefly touch­ing his—was hope, resis­tance, and love. A reminder that even in the dark­est of places, some­one might still reach back.