“No!” she wailed. “I told you, I didn’t…I mean, I guess I took them, but I didn’t mean to. I just looked in my bag and found them there.”

“You’re saying someone framed you?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

Knowing how spiteful kids could be, it was a serious possibility. “Did you see anyone near your bag?” “I don’t know!” she said.

My patience was paper-thin. “Kasey, either you did, or you didn’t.”

“Maybe!” she said. “I mean, I don’t remember. But it had to be someone, right?”

Someone. More like Mimi Laird, or one of her snotty little friends. I didn’t say it out loud, though, because Kasey seemed traumatized enough.

I sighed. “You’re going to have to give them back.”

“I can’t!” she wailed. “I’ll get expelled!”

“Teachers understand mean kids, Kase,” I said. “You just have to do it soon so it doesn’t look any weirder.”

“Will you help me? I’m tired,” she said pitifully. “I didn’t sleep very much last night.”

I didn’t point out that she’d just taken a two-hour power nap.

A thought occurred to me. “Yeah, so…why were you in the garage this morning?”

Her nose wrinkled. “I wasn’t in the garage.”

“When I saw you in the hall, your socks were dirty—” I began.

“In the hall?” she asked. “I didn’t see you in the hall this morning.”

I stared at her.

“What are you talking about, Lexi? I don’t understand.”

I didn’t understand either. But I did understand that all of these bizarre things were starting to add up and make me feel like I was going crazy. After all, what was that old saying? The common link between all your problems is you?

What if I was losing it?

“I’m going for a walk,” I said, going into my room to get my house key. “Can I come?”

“No!” I said. “I just want to be by myself for a while.”

“No fair,” she whined.

“You just stay here,” I said. “And try to figure out how you’re going to explain to your teacher that you stole everybody’s reports.”

“I didn’t!” she yelled. “I didn’t steal anything! Someone put them in my bag!”

Then she ran into her room and slammed the door.

At least she wasn’t insisting on coming.

I went downstairs and out the front door, locking it as I left. Out of guilt, I glanced up at Kasey’s windows to see if she was looking down at me.

She was.

I pulled my eyes away from her and glanced at the oak tree, trying to forget its horrible role in my dream.

That’s when I noticed the lines of the wood, the jagged edges of long-since-removed limbs, the soft overgrowth of bark on several of the scars left behind by pruning or broken branches.

The tree I’d drawn the night before—it was this tree. This exact tree, down to a tuft of grass growing out of a tiny hollow about six feet off the ground.

I had to get out of there. But I could think of only one place to go.

I hurried down the front walk, toward the street.

By the time I reached the school, most of the parking lot was empty. A few stragglers stood by their cars in small groups, talking. A crowd of kids waited miserably at the bus loop for their late bus. At the sight of the brick building, my body tensed, the way it does at 7:58 every weekday morning. But it was better than being surrounded by things that made me feel like I was coming completely undone.

One girl looked at me strangely. When I walked past her, she moved forward like she was going to say something, but her friend touched her arm and they both turned away.

As I passed the gym, a mob of cheerleaders emerged from the band room and went by me, chattering like first graders at a crosswalk. They weren’t wearing uniforms, but their white-ribboned ponytails and packlike formation gave them away.

A couple of them looked at me and whispered, heads bowed together like horses nuzzling.

Megan Wiley was the last to exit. She carried a notebook and studied the papers inside it so intently that she almost walked right into me.

“Sorry,” she muttered, and then looked up. When she saw me, she took an involuntary step backward.

I averted my eyes, waiting for her to make a quick retreat into the gym after her minions, but she didn’t. Instead, when I glanced up, she was looking at me.

“How’s your dad?” she said.

The question was beyond unexpected. “Um, all right.”

“Lydia told everyone you fainted,” she said. With a shudder, she added, “Then she said your dad was probably going to die.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. For some reason my mouth felt like it was full of straw. “He’s okay,” I said. “Just broken bones, bruised organs. Limbs, ribs, that kind of thing.”

The conversation could have ended there, but Megan swallowed hard. “I just…My mom died in a car accident when I was a baby,” she said. “So I was really worried.”

Wow.

“Wow,” I said. What else could I say? The things you don’t know about people. “I’m sorry.” “Well, I don’t remember her, so…” “Still,” I said. Yikes.

“I live with my grandmother,” she said, and then her eyes flickered longingly toward the door where all of her friends had gone.

“But thanks for asking,” I said.

“I’m glad she’s okay.”

“No, it was… he. It was my dad,” I said.

She blushed, her perfect cheeks turning a lovely rose color. “I mean—I knew that, sorry.”

“Well,” I said, wishing for a sinkhole or something to swallow me up.

We stood there, up to our ankles in awkwardness.

“Thanks,” I said at last.

She smiled a tight-lipped smile and ducked into the gym. Huh.

I stood there for a second. Then without warning the door opened, and Megan stuck her head out.

“If you’re looking for Carter Blume, I saw him talking to Mr. Makely about five minutes ago,” she said.

My expression was apparently so shocked that it was funny, because Megan laughed. It was a short, self-conscious laugh, but it wasn’t mean or anything.

“See you,” she said, and disappeared. This time I hurried away so she couldn’t surprise me again.

Mr. Makely stood outside the library for twenty minutes after school ended every day. I’d probably have him for physics next year. He gave me a strange look as I entered the courtyard, and I got this weird, uncomfortable feeling that everyone thought my dad was dead. It made my heart beat funny for a second just to think about it. Carter wasn’t there, so I headed toward the student parking lot.

When I got there, the first thing I saw was Carter in his car, studying his iPod. I stopped suddenly as it hit me—what was I doing? Why had I run straight to Carter? I hardly even knew him, and here I was, following him around after school like a lovesick loser.

The skin around my jaw and ears felt tight, and my eyes started to burn. I wondered how fast I could get someplace else. Just somewhere he wouldn’t see me as he drove away. I scanned the parking lot and saw only low shrubs and a few cars that were all too far away to dash for.

I had no choice but to stand there and wait for him to notice me. He did a double take, then got out of the car and walked over.

“Hi,” he said, his voice a question.

I looked at him, and the “wanting to crawl under a rock and die” feeling intensified. “How’s your dad?” “He’s okay.”

Carter looked at me. “How are you?” Amazing how suddenly there was no easy answer to that question.

“I’m fine,” I said.

He just looked at me and shook his head. “No you’re not.”

That made me laugh, but laughing made tears spring to my eyes. “I know,” I said.

He didn’t say anything else. He held his hand out like I should take it.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

He looked at the sky and then at the ground. “I understand,” he said.

And then I was engulfed in his arms and his smell, laundry detergent and shampoo and all that was clean. I closed my eyes and leaned against him and let everything go.