Nothing did, of course.

Great. Now the air conditioner was wonky. Mom and Dad would assume that Kasey and I turned it on when we got home and somehow broke it.

I pried the plastic cover away. The little blue arm stood at seventy-five, but the thermometer read fifty-four degrees. So even if it wasn’t off, it wasn’t supposed to be running.

The cold was unbearable. I ran upstairs and peered through Kasey’s bedroom door. She was asleep, little puffs of foggy breath escaping from her mouth. It was too cold for just a T-shirt.

The dolls seemed to stare in disapproval, and I knew if Kase woke up she’d probably flip out and spend the next six months paranoid that I was going to mess with her stuff when she wasn’t looking. But the last thing we needed was for her to get a horrible flu from sleeping in the freezing cold. I went just as far as the closet, to get a blanket.

The shelves in my sister’s closet (like the rest of her bedroom) were an absolute disaster. Books, jewelry, shoes, magazines, her old Snoopy phone that had turned yellow with age, all piled on top of one another. The pink blanket she used in the winter rested on the bottom shelf, with her backpack leaning up against it. As I pulled on the blanket, the backpack tipped over, spilling out a fan of multicolored folders.

I reached down to gather them, when I caught a glimpse of one of the covers.

my ancestors, it read. by mimi laird.

I looked at the next one. my ancestors, benji byerson. my ancestors, jennilynn woo. my ancestors, evan litchfield.

“What are you doing?”

The voice scared me so much that I dropped the stack of reports.

I just stared at her. “I came in to cover you up, but…why do you have everyone else’s projects?”

She gave me a look that said pretty plainly that she didn’t think it was my business.

“I’m a student grader,” she said at last.

“A what?”

“It’s new.” Kasey yawned and scooted to the edge of the bed. “Don’t bother with the blanket; I’m awake.” She followed my gaze to the papers on the floor. “I’ll get those later,” she said.

I was kind of surprised she hadn’t wigged out about me being so close to her dolls without supervision.

But she didn’t look anywhere near freaking out. And if she wasn’t going to freak out, I wasn’t going to either.

“There’s something wrong with the thermostat. Come help me check out the circuit breaker,” I said.

Kasey followed me downstairs and into the garage.

The cold had seeped under the kitchen door and even the garage was chilly. If Mom showed up now we’d be grounded until college. How long would it take to warm up the house if we opened all the windows? Then Mom would never know…until the electric bill showed up.

Built into the wall behind the garage door was a metal cabinet. Opening it revealed about thirty chunky black switches. Kasey leaned in to look at them.

“What are those?”

“Fuses,” I said.

“Which one is for the air conditioner?” Kasey asked.

I studied the little map at the top of the cabinet. Third down on the left, the little square was labeled “A/C.”

“This one,” I said, flipping the switch. “Go see if that worked.”

Kasey ran inside. A second later she came huffing and puffing back. “Nope,” she panted.

I stared at the rest of the circuits. “Okay,” I said. “Stay here and flip this switch when I tell you to.”

I went inside to the thermostat and looked at the little red light in the corner. “Flip it!” I called.

The red light went dark.

“Flip it back!” I called.

The light came back on. Then off, then on, then off, and on again. But none of that mattered, because the whole time, cold air never stopped blowing through the vent.

Kasey came in from the garage, shivering. “No luck?”

“No,” I said, my teeth chattering. “We’re going to get in sooo much trouble.”

“So what else is new?” Kasey said. She approached the thermostat and grabbed the switch, moving it back and forth. I almost told her to stop because I was afraid the stupid thing would break off.

“I’m freezing,” Kasey said under her breath. “Turn off, turn off”

Midflip, the air conditioner turned off. We stood in confused silence.

“Huh,” I said. “Weird.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Kasey snapped.

“Did I say you did?” I asked, going back into the kitchen. “Jeez.”

She stomped up the stairs, leaving me alone. I pulled a string cheese and a few pieces of sliced turkey out of the fridge and stood in the kitchen eating, just kind of looking around.

I looked at the garage door and then down at the floor. The light gray rag rug had dark smudges on it. Our footprints.

I lifted my foot and looked at the bottom of my sock.

It was covered in a fine dusting of grimy-looking dirt.

Just like the dirt I’d seen on Kasey’s sock that morning.

So she’d been in the garage?

At six thirty in the morning?

…Why?

The contact sheet from my earlier darkroom session was completely dry. I counted down to the fifth row of negatives and over three, to the half-ruined, half-in-focus picture. I put the negative into a little frame, checked the focus, then set a piece of photo paper down and hit the timer.

After fifteen seconds I slipped the paper into the developer and stood back to watch the image emerge.

But there wasn’t an image. Unless the whole paper immediately turning black counts as an image.

I pulled that page out and rinsed it clean before dropping it in the trash.

I set another piece of paper down and turned the timer on for five seconds, figuring it might be underexposed, but at least I would have a better idea of what time to use.

But no. This one turned black too. A panicky feeling started to rise up inside me as I looked at the package of photo paper. There were two black plastic bags with fifty sheets each; only the top one should have been unsealed. But they were both open. And the stacks of paper weren’t neat and even—they were irregular and off-center.

All of my paper had been exposed.

A package like this cost sixty dollars. With my current weekly allowance of twenty dollars, that meant three weeks of savings down the drain. And three weeks of more saving before I could even afford another package.

Three weeks without developing photos?

I started to feel kind of sick.

I’d told my sister a trillion times not to touch my stuff, not to even go into the darkroom, and she refused to listen.

Kasey was guilty. She had to be.

After a few deep breaths I went to confront my sister. My hands shook as I stalked down the hall and pounded on her door.

Stay calm, I told myself. Be mature.

She opened it, blue eyes wide.

“What?” she asked.

I took a long breath through my nose. “Just…tell me…why.” “Huh?”

My calm exterior shattered like a lightbulb dropped from a third-floor window. “Why did you do it, Kasey?

What did I do to you? I try so hard to be nice to you when nobody else even wants to be your friend, and you—”

Her hands flew up to her cheeks, which flushed pink. “Lexi!” she cried, dismayed.

I took a step back. “Why, Kasey?!”

“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “I swear I didn’t. I don’t even know what happened. I heard a noise and then all I remember is having the weirdest dream and then I was at school and they said come to the office because of Dad and I saw all the reports on Ms. Lewin’s desk and later they were in my bag—”

“What?”

Her face fell slack, her jaw hanging slightly open, her breath ragged.

“What are you talking about, Kase?”

She shook her head and stared at the floor.

“I’m talking about my photo paper. Someone ruined it. All of it.”

“It wasn’t me,” she said in a tiny voice.

“But wait—you stole those reports from school? I thought you said you were a student grader.”