“I didn’t even—”

“Can we go?” Kasey interrupted. “Walking home is going to take forever.”

I don’t care if she’s totally lost it, I thought. I’m going to murder her.

“Bye,” I said. Kasey had started walking away.

“Good to see you again, Kasey,” Carter called.

I looked at Kasey to see what she would do. She turned and glared at me, not even glancing at Carter.

Nice.

I ignored her the whole walk home. I was done trying to help her if she wasn’t going to try to help herself.

After making a sandwich, I went straight upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom with the stereo turned way up.

A half hour later, I heard Mom’s voice from the hall.

“Alexis?” she called. “Are you all right? Why is your music so loud?”

I went to the door and opened it, then went back and sat on my bed. She wandered in and sat next to me.

I switched off the music. “How’s Dad?”

“He’s fine,” she said. “Maybe you can stop by after school tomorrow.”

“I’ll try.”

“Are you feeling sick?” she asked, and put her wrist against my forehead. She drew back in surprise. “You have a goose egg.”

“I know,” I said. “Someone knocked me down at school yesterday.” Seeing the concerned look on her face, I added, “Not on purpose. With a door.”

Her brow wrinkled the way it does when she’s worried. “They didn’t call me.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” I said, and thinking of Carter made me smile.

“Okay,” Mom said, apparently not interested in the details. “Let me know if you want something for it. You don’t have a fever.”

“I think I’ll lie down.”

“All right, honey,” she said. It sounded so alien to hear her say something momlike. She stood up and awkwardly touched my forehead. Then she looked around my room. “You’re so tidy,” she said approvingly. “You must have gotten it from your father. Certainly not from me.”

True. She’s pretty sloppy for a mom.

Her eyes stopped on the bookshelves. “What’s wrong with your yearbooks?” she asked.

I looked at the shelf where all of my school yearbooks, from kindergarten up, are stored. The last one, my freshman yearbook, was missing, causing the whole row to lean at an annoying angle.

“One’s gone,” I said. Odd. My thoughts flashed to Kasey.

“It’s not lost, is it?” I almost heard an accusation in Mom’s voice—like I’d sold it for drug money or something.

“Well, technically,” I said. “But I’m sure it’ll turn up.” She sighed. “Those things cost a fortune.” Just as I was about to reply, a cell phone ring blared from across the hallway, and Mom sprang up off the bed. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

I sighed and leaned back, hugging a pillow to my chest and closing my eyes.

A couple of minutes later Mom came out of her bedroom saying, “Okay…oh…thank you…yes…okay…yes, please do…”

She clapped the phone shut. Then she looked at me, but her eyes were unfocused.

“What?” I asked.

“That was a detective from the police department,” she said, fluttering her hands in the air. “He said they have reason to suspect foul play…They looked at the car’s brakes, and the wires had been…It looked as if they’d been cut.”

I sat straight up. “Someone sabotaged Dad’s car?”

“Yes, but…” She shook her head and lowered herself onto the mattress. “No, Alexis…not his car— mine. He was going to drop it off to get my oil changed.”

I sat back against the headboard and looked at Mom, who was just staring down at the carpet.

“Oh my goodness,” she said, her voice shaky. “Listen, don’t tell Kasey about this. It would be too much for her.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”

Mom touched my forehead gently before standing up and making her way out into the hall, dazed.

Thinking about Kasey made me think about the reports in her backpack.

Was it possible that the same kids who did that somehow came to my house and did this? Decided to pull a prank on our parents? If Mimi was mad enough about her arm, maybe she put part of the blame on Mom….

But that would be, like, attempted murder. Even the most obnoxious eighth grader wouldn’t try to kill someone else’s mother.

Unless…

Unless she thought Kasey would be in the car.

A half hour later, the doorbell rang. Thinking it might be the police, I rushed to the top of the stairs and watched Mom open the door. But it was just a pizza delivery guy.

Mom looked up at me. “Are you hungry?”

I shook my head.

Mom looked tired. Her face was pale and her hair was tugged back into a sloppy bun.

“Can you get your sister, then?”

I swallowed hard, just as Kasey bumped into me from behind. It was enough of an impact to make me grab on to the wall, feeling a split-second panic that I was going to fall down the stairs.

“Oops,” she said.

Mom took the pizza into the kitchen, and Kasey took the steps at half her usual speed. Halfway down, she stopped and turned to look at me.

“What’s your problem?” she asked.

Your friends are trying to kill you, I thought, but I forced my shoulders back and kept my voice strong. “I don’t have a problem….Listen, do you think we should talk to Mom about those reports in your backpack?”

Her hand squeezed the railing so tightly that the muscles in her neck seemed to tense up.

“No,” she said. “We oughtn’t.” “We what?”

She glared at me. “I said no. It’s done. Resolved. I already took them back to school.” “You did?”

She made an irritated noise. “I’m not completely helpless, you know.”

She took the rest of the stairs two at a time and slipped into the kitchen.

I stared after her while my thoughts rattled around in my head.

Nope. I didn’t believe her.

I crept down the hall to Kasey’s room. Inside, the only light was a faint slant of yellow spilling in from the hall, illuminating a little display of threadbare rag dolls on the other side of the room. When my eyes had adjusted and the lumps of blackness had taken on furniture shapes, I looked around for Kasey’s book bag.

I found it on the floor between the bed and the doll shelves on the far wall, and as I crouched on the carpet I felt as if dozens of pairs of eyes were watching me, angry at my trespass.

The bag was unzipped.

And empty.

It had basic school stuff—pens, a couple of empty notebooks, the last two issues of Doll Fancy (no wonder she had no friends left, if she read that stuff at school)— but no reports.

I stood up and surveyed the semidarkness, trying to figure out where she would have stashed them. I even remotely considered the possibility that she was telling the truth.

And that’s when I saw my freshman yearbook lying open at the foot of the bed.

It was open to a page of last year’s seniors, and Kasey had made a red mark on one girl’s portrait. Why would she do that?

I turned the book so I could see it better in the light from the hall.

And then the light grew narrower.

Under my gaze, the door jerked a little, almost as if I’d woken it up.

And then slowly, an inch at a time, it began to close.

I grabbed the yearbook, and the door slammed shut in front of me, closing me in the dark.

Fear pulsed through me like flashes of light. I was paralyzed by shock, too frightened even to move, although some distant part of my brain was yelling at me, Get out!

And then came the worst part by far. For a split second I thought it was my imagination, but I knew—I just knew it wasn’t.

A puff of cold, wet air on my neck. The smell of rotten eggs.

I yanked the door open, practically throwing myself at the wall across the hallway. I hardly had time to look back at Kasey’s door before it slammed shut again.

I ran into my room, switched on my light, and locked myself in.

After a few minutes I caught my breath and sat down on the floor near the wall opposite the door. I wanted a clear view.