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

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

Maisie never made it to lunch on Friday. I don't know why. Maybe she just didn't eat. She never eats very much anyway.

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

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

"Lately she's been so weird, so hostile..."

"She's been acting like a boy, like you said yesterday."

"But today—"

"Did she talk to you today?"

"No. You?"

"Not at all. Are you guys still doing the mom swap today?"

I sighed. "Yeah. This is supposed to be the last one."

"It really bothers you, doesn't it?" Suze asked. She crunched into a celery stick.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It's like... I know it's good for Maisie to have a positive relationship with an adult..."

"Meaning your mom."

"Right. And it's great that I don't have to do all that work around the house..."

"You lazy thing!"

"Hmmph! But it seems like Maisie's been meaner to me since it started."

It was weird. It began more or less as a joke, when I saw Maisie laughing and having fun with my mother. Then, I thought it would be nice for Maisie, who has so much that's bad in her life... plus, Ida is about the coolest adult I've met, and I get to spend time with her.

I guess I expected Maisie to be happier, or better, or nicer... or at least grateful! Instead, she's gone from friendly teasing to being pushy and rough and rude... and just downright hostile.

Susan mused, "Maybe Maisie wishes she could take your place. I wonder whether psychologists have a word for this? It isn't sibling rivalry... it's more like family envy or... what could they call it?"

"Oh, Suze! It doesn't matter what anybody calls it!"

"Sorry," she said, and mentally filed the question away, so she could think about it later. "Anyway," she went on, "It could be that after living in your house, in your life, she might hate her own life even more than before. Maybe she resents the way you relate to your mother. I mean, that you don't have a problem with your mother. Or even with her mother, for that matter."

"I don't know..."

"Just think: at the end of each weekend away, she goes from fun, relationship, caring, smiles, back to–"

"Back to one of her two hells," I said, finishing the thought as Maisie would have.

Susan sighed. "But you know what's weird? *I* envy Maisie. I would switch places with either of you in a heartbeat. I love my family and all that, but you guys have this total freedom, while I live in permanent lockdown."

"You would switch places with Maisie?" I asked. "Is it really that bad at your house?"

She sighed. "No, I guess not. I wouldn't want to be Maisie. She is so messed up. And I could never give up my family."

"No, me neither," I said.

The two of us ate in silence for about twenty seconds, when I said, "The thing is, I keep feeling that something bad is coming. Like Maisie is going to knife me in the back somehow."

Susan laughed. "What do think she'll do? Kill you and take your place? Like in a Lifetime-television-for-women movie?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Something like that."

"Oooh, creepy!" she giggled.

Susan obviously thought I was joking or exaggerating, but I wasn't. At the same time, I didn't like badmouthing Maisie. She *is* my friend, in spite of the way she's behaving now. So I shook off my negative thoughts with a shudder and followed Susan to the library.

At the end of the day, I was standing my by my locker, struggling with my stuff. I probably should have set something down, so I could arrange things better, but instead I clung to my weekend bag with two fingers. I didn't have my backpack — Mom had put it in the laundry and forgot to dry it in time, so all my books and papers were stacked in my arms, and they tended to slide in different directions.

The arrangement was pretty awkward, but I thought I could make it outside to the car. I shut the locker by leaning my back against it. At that precise moment, Maisie came tearing down the hall. Quite purposefully, she knocked the whole pile out of my arms, sending my belongings flying halfway across the hall. Without looking back or saying a word, she ran out the front door.

"Maisie!" I shouted angrily after her, but she didn't stop, turn, or even seem to hear me.

She picked the worst possible moment to do it, too. An instant later, the Friday stampede was unleashed. Every girl in the school had only one thing in mind: GET OUT THE DOOR. And nothing could stand in their way: it was a flood of blue-skirted balls of energy with legs — and hard, sensible shoes.

Each time I crouched to pick up a book or paper, some girl would nearly fall over me, or at least bump into me. Sometimes they kicked me, or kicked my things away. It didn't matter whether it was on purpose or by accident. The point is, it was overwhelming.

Girls kept shouting, "Watch out!" as if it were my fault. I didn't see who, but someone else tried (unsuccessfully) to knock my books down again. A few girls from my senior gym class came strolling down in a group. At first they stopped and gathered up everything of mine. I was grateful and relieved, until they pitched all of it as far from me as they could, or tucked my books into places I couldn't quite reach. It wasn't until virtually everyone had left that I was able to find everything. Plus, I had to do a fair bit of jumping to get the books in high places.

They set my weekend bag on top of the lockers, just out of my reach, but after I'd whacked it a bit, one of the handles dropped far enough that I could jump, grab it, and pull the whole bag down on my head.

The cover had come off my Algebra book, and the others looked a bit worse for wear. All of my papers had footprints on them. I didn't think girls could be so mean!

Still, aside from the one book, nothing was broken... just dirty, and I could dust them all off at Ida's house.

By the time I got outside, Maisie and my mother were long gone. Ida was the only mother left. "Your mom wanted to say goodbye," Ida told me, "but you took so long to come out. Are you okay?"

In answer, I threw my things into the back seat, and hugged Ida around her waist. She put one hand between my shoulders and the other on the top of my head and held me. She didn't say anything or ask anything, and she didn't move or try to end the embrace. She just held me.

When I felt a little better, I stepped back. Looking into her face, I said, "Thanks."

"For what?" she smiled, and ran her hand through my hair. "Listen, how about we stop at the grocery store first and pick up some food. Okay? I've been looking forward to your cooking all week!"

"Great!" I replied. "I already worked out the weekend menu and the shopping list."

She chuckled and walked around to the driver's side. As I opened my door, I had the feeling someone was watching me. I looked up, directly into the eyes — or rather, the dark glasses, of a man. He was sitting behind the wheel of a white panel truck, which was parked across the street.

He turned his head away slowly, started the truck, and drove off. Wherever he was going, he wasn't in a hurry. I stood next to Ida's car and watched the van until it went down the block and took a right turn. It gave me an uneasy feeling for some reason, but at least they were heading away from us, away from the direction we were going.

"Everything okay?" Ida called from inside the car.

"Oh, yeah," I replied, and climbed in.

As we walked from the car to the grocery store, my cell phone rang. The caller ID told me it was Maisie.

"Hey, Maze," I said. "What's up?" I'd been happily chatting with Ida, and had forgotten for a moment about the books and Maisie's hostility.

"You tell me," she said, in a low, poisonous voice.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my blood chilling.

"Who are you?" she asked.

My face grew hot. "You know who I am. You called me. Maisie, what's this about?"

"Do you remember Miriam Clegg?"

I stood stock still, frozen in fear. Miriam was a girl from Tarhent, a girl from my block, a girl I knew since kindergarden. If Maisie knew Miriam, then she probably knew that I used to be a boy.

Ida didn't realize that I'd stopped, and she kept on walking.

"Sounds like you do remember. Did you know that Miriam is a friend of mine? I just finished talking with her. It was a *very* interesting conversation. I asked her if she knew you, and she did. Well, she knew Mark. But it turns out that Mark wasn't a tomboy, Mark was just a regular boy-boy, wasn't he?"

"Oh," I said in a small voice.

Ida had almost reached the door of the supermarket. I felt cold and small and far away.

"Yeah, oh. So what are you, Mark? Some kind of freak? A boy, dressed like a girl? A pansy? A sissy?"

"Oh, Maisie!" I cried in distress.

Ida heard me and turned back to look. Now that she saw how far behind I was, she stopped to let me catch up. I heard a car take a sharp corner behind me, but I didn't turn to see.

"You sound like a girl, and you look like a girl, but you're not a girl. You disgust me. You make me want to throw up. I wish I could kill—"

I didn't hear the rest, because a pair of rough hands grabbed me from behind and yanked me into the back of a van. "Go! Go! Go!" a voice shouted, and the van took off. The last thing I saw before the door slammed shut was Ida's face, contorted in a mask of fear, horror, and helplessness.

© 2007 Kaleigh Way