Cameras flashed, and the crowd surged forward around her. I had to move fast, or they were going to cut me off.

"Get out of the way!" I shouted. "Can't any of you jackasses help her? What's wrong with you? She might be hurt!"

"But what if it isn't?" I asked her. "What if it's not going to be alright?"

She took a deep breath and said, "Then we deal with it. Whatever that means."

I don't know how those little stories strike you, but... as I listened... at first I felt like a fish out of water. My first impulse was to laugh or to mock, but I was the only one. Everyone else in the room took each story as it was: a candid offering. I'm not saying they were all good; they weren't. But they were all sincere, without guile.

"I'm sorry I missed it," he went on, "but I figured it was just going to be a kids' party, you know? I should have thought... I should have known that Tatum here would carry destruction in her wake."

"My name is Juliette," I corrected. Not that it mattered, because Robert's father just went on talking.

"Do you want a snack?"

"No," I said, putting my hand on my rather full stomach. "I had the hugest breakfast."

"Oh, yes, I forgot what a little pig-lotta you are!" she teased.

She rushed over with a gleam in her eye and what my uncle later described as a "murderous smile."

Uncle Mickey muttered, "Lord help us, we're in for it now!"

Our two visitors started shifting anxiously in their seats. I couldn't imagine what was on their minds.

"Uh, one reason we came over—"

"...if you don't mind..."

The old story of the scorpion and the frog came to mind. Maisie would be the scorpion... striking out at people is part of her nature. Maybe someday she could heal and change. Maybe. In a way, it didn't matter, because I knew that from now on, at least a part of me would always have an eye on her, ever vigilant. I'd been stung already, and I wasn't going to get stung again.

I sat down on a tree stump, away from the action. My cell phone battery was dead, and I still hadn't called my parents. And I was cold. Really cold. So cold that I wasn't trembling anymore. My energy was utterly depleted.

A police detective approached me, a woman, and she asked, "Is anybody helping you? Are you okay?"

Her brow wrinkled. She looked hurt and offended, and she started to fade away.

Alarmed, I said, "No, no! Misty, don't go anywhere!"

No doubt my uniform stank of smoke and was dirty from rolling around in the filth back here. Couldn't they have cleaned the vans before they abducted me? I wished I had a change of clothes. I wished I'd had a little warning! If I knew I was going to be kidnapped, I would have worn jeans, for one thing.

"Remind me why we're friends with Maisie," I said to Susan.

"She does have her moods, doesn't she?"

Mom gave me a tight hug and said, "My gosh, Marcie! Now I'm having adventures, just like you!"

I rolled my eyes, and she burst out laughing.

"You want an email account? Ha– Who w-would you wr-write to?"

"My sister," she said, as if that were obvious. Then, grinning, she added, "You know, Mrs. Wix."

Mom sighed. "You have to get that operation soon," she said. "You really forget that you're not a girl, don't you?"

"Yeah," I admitted glumly.

I almost dropped the phone in shock. I wanted to slam down the phone. I wanted to slam it down and break it, but still somehow cry and shout and tell him off... but I didn't.

Susan shrugged and smiled. "They said that if it bothers you, you have to find a way to get Mrs. Wix involved."

"How can I do that? What am I supposed to do? Invite her for a sleepover?"

In a low voice that was almost a whisper, Maisie told me, "I saw the ghost of Misty Sabatino."

Goosebumps rose in a rapid wave up the back of my neck and both my arms.

Could somehow Maisie and her mother *both* be right in some way? Could Maisie have exaggerated? Could Maisie have misunderstood?

I sighed. Why do people have to be so complicated?

"It's never hard to know what boys are thinking," Maisie said.

"Or what they're looking at," Susan added.

Maisie cut me off. "Listen to me. I know that Ida seems like a nice person. Maybe she is nice to you and your mother... and to everyone else on earth except me." At this point, Maisie was fighting back tears. She dropped the wrench, balled her fists, and swore. "I'm NOT going to cry...," she said, gritting her teeth.

Maisie was full of surprises. I knew she was rich, that she'd always been rich, and that she didn't clean her own house, let alone her own room. She didn't even make her own bed! Yet, here she was digging through trash with me, and she seemed to find it less disgusting than I did.

"Look at this, though!" I said, pointing to a comment in italics. It read The "evil twin".

"Whoa! What does that mean?" Maisie asked. "Mrs. Wix, evil? I don't believe it. It's impossible."