I couldn’t wait for the tripod—I held the camera as steady as possible, bending my knees and bracing my body and taking a deep breath and holding it—and pressed down the shutter.

After a few seconds I let go, then took another picture, and another.

“Ready,” Kasey said, handing me the little plate to screw on to the camera.

As quickly as I could, I attached the camera to the tripod, then put my eye to the viewfinder.

The light was gone.

We waited a few more minutes, but it never

returned. Finally, I capped the lens and folded up the tripod. Kasey watched me, glancing up every few seconds to see if the light was back. Our eyes met at one point, and I had to swallow hard.

What was it? Where had it come from? Why did it turn off? Neither of us asked the questions out loud.

But we were both thinking them.

We marched silently through the side yard. Fortunately, the October nights were cool enough that the many, many ginormous spiders that usually populated that part of the yard were gone. I walked in front, though, just in case. Kasey was a freaker-outer, and we didn’t need any bloodcurdling screams advertising our location.

I turned back to check on her, stopping so abruptly that she ran right into me.

“Spider?” she asked, panic in her voice.

I shook my head. I was looking past her into the front yard, at the spot where we’d been standing just twenty seconds earlier.

It was lit up by the same faint glow we’d seen in the tree.

And it actually seemed to be…growing. “What?” Kasey whispered.

“Uh…” If my sister saw it, she would spaz. I looked right at her and smiled. “Nothing.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I got a sense of the light

growing larger—and then I realized it wasn’t getting bigger—

—It was getting closer.

It was following us.

“You know, I might have seen a little spider,” I said.

“Go. Now. Move,” Kasey said, pushing on my back.

I let her go ahead of me through the back door as I cast one final glance behind us. There was no glow. Either it had disappeared, or it hadn’t rounded the corner yet.

We slipped into stealth mode to climb the stairs from the foyer to the second floor, skipping the third, eighth, and eleventh steps, all of which squeaked loudly enough to wake the dead, and then Kasey waved a little good-bye and ducked into her bedroom.

I set the tripod on the floor and the camera on the dresser, and exhaustion overwhelmed me. I changed into a long T-shirt and crawled into bed, telling myself that it had just been a swarm of curious fireflies.

I mean, it had to be. There wasn’t any other explanation.

The last thing I saw before I fell asleep was the faintest trace of a glow on the spindly branches of the oak tree outside my window.

Curious fireflies, I told myself sleepily. So curious that they’d found a way to follow us upstairs without actually coming into the house.

2

Back left corner of the library , underneath the study desks.

You have to be willing to sit on the floor, but that’s a small price to pay for the perfect instead-of-class hangout: zero student traffic, lots of legroom, and complete invisibility to the librarian.

“Excuse me, Alexis.”

Tragically, it was not invisible to the principal. “What class are you cutting this fine fall day, Miss Warren?”

I stood up out of the library carrel and grabbed my bag. “History. But technically, I’m not cutting a class.”

The corner of Mrs. Ames’s mouth twisted up into an almost-smile, and she cleared her throat. This was promising—this was “My day hasn’t taken a nosedive yet, so this is kind of amusing,” not “I’ve had it up to here.” When you spend as much time around the principal as I do, you get to know her idiosyncrasies.

“And why does history not qualify as a class?” As she spoke, Mrs. Ames adjusted the straw beach hat she’d worn for Hat Day—day one of the officially most annoying time of the entire school year, Homecoming Week. The hat clashed horribly with her beige blazer, but I knew way better than to comment.

We walked out of the library. As nice as it would be to pretend we were having a pleasant stroll, I knew where we were headed. And I knew what phone number she would be calling when we got there. And I knew what meeting my mother would be pulled out of to talk to her daughter’s principal—again. And I knew exactly which classroom to report to for Saturday detention—and not the fun ‘80s-movie kind of Saturday detention—the incredibly boring kind that makes you want to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil. (At least then you’d get to leave.)

I sighed. “They’re in the gym. Decorating for the banquet.”

If there was a bright side to this whole thing, it was that I still got to miss decorating the stupid gym for the stupid alumni Homecoming banquet. Another detention, big deal. I hadn’t had a free Saturday since August.

But Mrs. Ames is no dummy. “Ah,” she said, and stared right into my eyes. “Well, I’ll tell you what—why don’t we sweep this incident under the rug and get you back to class so you can help out?”

I shot her a look. She gave me an innocent smile. We started down the hallway that led to the gym. “How many times is this now, Alexis?” “This month?” “This year.”

I puffed air out of my mouth to blow the wispy pink hairs away from my face.

“Twelve, Alexis,” she said. “Twelve skipped classes— that I know of—not to mention a number of other small incidents.”

The way she said small incidents was a very clear reminder that some of the incidents weren’t small. I, personally, don’t see what’s so criminal about giving honest feedback to a student teacher who should clearly quit while she’s ahead, or having an anti-fashion show outside the gym during the choir’s annual fashion show. But I guess that’s just me.

“Let me tell you, Miss Warren, there’s been some pressure to avoid handing out Saturday detentions like lollipops. There’s a big trend in the district toward suspension right now.”

Suspension.

I dug my fingernails lightly into the palm of my hand. Somehow suspension sounded way worse than detention. Detention happens to everybody. Suspension, though—that’s for the sociopaths.

I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was ready to take that leap.

She sighed as we started walking again. “You know I think you have a lot of potential, Alexis. Your test scores are very high, and it’s clear that you can do well, if you want to.”

She went off into a lecture about how nobody can make my choices but me. I nodded, but I was only half listening. The word suspension was still buzzing around in my head like an angry bee.

We reached the gym.

The entire history class was spread out around the gym working on stupid, meaningless tasks for the stupid, meaningless banquet, and every head turned to look at us. I held my chin high and shot a couple of disdainful looks around. The kids I made eye contact with went back to their work.

Mrs. Anderson, who happens to be the dumbest teacher ever (and I’m not just saying that, it’s true—it took her four tries to pronounce “aborigines”), came hustling over.

“Well, what have we here?” she asked. “Alexis, what a nice surprise. I assume you’re on your way to the main office.”

Mrs. Ames frowned. “No. Miss Warren and I have just been chatting, so I hope you’ll excuse her tardiness.

I’m going to leave her in your capable hands, Mrs. Anderson.”

She said capable hands a lot like she’d said small incidents.

“Wonderful,” Mrs. Anderson replied. Mrs. Ames looked down at me. “I’m sure you’ll put your best effort into your work today, Alexis.” Oh, totally.

But Mrs. Anderson wasn’t ready to let the torment end. She clapped her hands together. “Alexis! You must have forgotten that today is Hat Day! Silly girl, pink hair isn’t a hat! Luckily, we have some backups—” She turned and called over her shoulder. “Jeremy! Bring that box over here!”