I looked up at the second floor, and saw a girl's face in one of the windows. She looked directly into my eyes, but she didn't move or wave. I was so startled, at first I couldn't tell the others, but when I did, the girl was gone.

"Mom, why are going this way?" Maisie asked, in a tone that suggested that her mother was complete idiot. I like Maisie, but one thing she does that I cannot stand is the way she treats her mother.

"Marcie hasn't seen her new house. I thought we might drive by."

"Oh, thanks," I said. She smiled at me, then turned her eyes back to the road.

Maisie rolled her eyes and whispered to me, "She is such a total witch! She drives me up the wall!"

The car stopped in front of a big blue Victorian house. It sat on hill, and there were two flights of stairs from the sidewalk to the front door. I had to tip my head back to see the front door.

"Do you want to get out and see it?" Maisie's mother asked. "Nobody lives here, so we can walk around, but we can't go inside."

"Sure," I agreed. We walked up the driveway, which was steeper and had less snow than the steps. I have to say, I liked the place right off. It was big — bigger than our house in California, and there was a large porch in front with a porch swing.

Maisie lit a cigarette the moment she stepped from the car. Her mother looked at her, opened her mouth to say something, then stopped herself, tightening her lips.

I looked up at the second floor, and saw a girl's face in one of the windows. She looked directly into my eyes, but she didn't move or wave. We locked eyes for a couple of seconds. I was so startled, at first I couldn't tell the others, but when I did, the girl was gone.

Maisie's mother told me, "It must have been a trick of the light, Maisie — Marcie."

"I'm Maisie," Maisie said in a reproving tone.

"I know that!" her mother snapped. "I misspoke for a moment."

In a dismissive gesture, Maisie threw her cigarette into the snow, where it hissed out with surprising loudness. Then she turned her back and returned to the car.

I'd seen all that I could easily see of the house, and my feet were getting cold, so I wanted to go, too.

"Thanks for showing me the house," I told her mother. "I really appreciate it."

She gave me a tight smile, and followed me back to the car. I couldn't understand the tension between the two of them. Maisie had told me about the divorce and she had called her mother's house one of her "two hells," but I was having trouble seeing it.

Then I remembered the fight I'd had with my own mother today. I knew that we'd apologize and make up... eventually. Maybe Maisie and her mom had a fight and just stayed mad? Who would know? Plus, I realized that I hardly knew either of them... Maisie might have good reason to dislike her mother, no matter how nice she seemed to me.

When we got to Maisie's house, her mother got on the phone to my mother, and the two talked for a solid hour. Even if I was still mad at my mother, I was glad that she'd made a friend so quickly.

Maisie wanted to hear the blow-by-blow of my argument with my mother. For once, she didn't interrupt me.

When I was done, she almost shouted, "I can't believe it! She's mad at you because the guy grabbed you!?" She shook her head. "Adults are so messed up! It must be that once you pass a certain age, your brain dries up and hardens. That's why it quits working."

She scoffed to herself and continued, "You know what it's like? I thought of this one time, and it's true: getting older is like climbing a ladder. Becoming an adult is when you kick the ladder away and pretend it was never there."

"Not all adults are that way," I replied, feeling uneasy.

She continued, "Maybe, in the distant past, when our parents were teenagers, things were so different that they can't even comprehend what it means to be alive today."

"Oh, Maisie," I protested, and repeated, "Not all adults are that way. Hopefully we won't turn out that way."

She nodded. "That's for sure!"

It wasn't so much that I wanted to change subject, but I there was a question I wanted to ask Maisie almost from the moment we met. "Why do you smoke?" I asked her. "I've been wanting to ask you."

She looked at me for a few moments before replying. "I have lots of reasons," she said. "Good reasons. One, is for weight loss. It reduces the appetite. Two, it pisses off my mother, and she can't stop me, which is a bonus. Three, I like it. Four, it's cool."

I searched for something to say. I didn't want to preach to her.

"Look," she said, "I don't care whether *you* smoke. Nobody I hang out with smokes. Susan doesn't smoke. I don't expect you to pick up the habit, and I hope you don't expect me to stop."

"Okay," I agreed. "There was something else I wanted to ask you, and I know it's none of my business, but how come you and your mother don't get along with each other?"

"Oh, that's an easy one! And I don't mind telling you. When my parents got divorced they both fought to dump me on each other. Neither of them wanted me, so I don't want either of them."

If she had a cigarette in hand, she would have blown a cloud of smoke to the ceiling, to signify how little it meant to her.

I was stunned. How could she be so casual about it? What she'd just said was horrible — worse than horrible!

Maisie came from such a different world than me! I mean, sometimes my parents got angry or irritated with me, but I never felt that they didn't want me. Even now, when I was practically burning with anger at my mother, I knew that nothing could ever break our connection. She was always my mother, and I was always her child.

Maisie looked at my striken face, and laughed. She stretched and smiled. "Look at you! Don't worry, Marcie! It doesn't matter! Okay, so my parents are jerks. It's not the end of the world! Come on, let's not talk about that junk. Tell me about the bank robbery!"

Well, I did, but of course I had to back up a bit and tell her about the purse-snatcher, first. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to explain the cop's reaction.

It was Maisie's turn to be shocked. She didn't know that Sister Honororia had a brother, let alone a brother on the Flickerbridge police force. "Figures," she said. "I think *my* family's messed up, but that one just wins the prize. Could you imagine the two of them as kids?"

"Hmm," I said. "No, honestly, I can't."

Maisie wrinkled her nose and shuddered, then laughed. "Me, neither!" Then an idea kicked in: "Unless... unless... they were the worst bullies in their school!"

"Yuck!" I reacted, shuddering as well.

Maisie's mom invited me to dinner, and I was glad to stay. It was nice to hang out in Maisie's room. It was big and comfortable and warm, and nobody bothered us.

Then I realized that I'd never done this before. When I spent time at Eden's house, we were almost always in the rec room, working on the dance routine. I'd never been to Carla's house, and at Jerry's I was always with Jerry, but never in his room.

"Do you always wear skirts?" I asked Maisie.

"I guess," she said. "I like clothes that are bulky and loose, and it's hard to find pants that fit that way and don't fall down. I'm not really into clothes, like you. My mother buys me all this stuff and I just grab things at random. She's always like 'this-doesn't-go-with-that', but I could not care less!"

"Ah," I said. "I never really thought I was into clothes, but I guess you're right." It sounded like not being interested in clothes was a way Maisie had of rejecting her mother. I didn't completely believe that she wasn't interested in how she looked.

Maisie smiled. "I bet you read one of those fashion mags, like Cosmo or Elle."

I blushed. "I'm still trying to find the one that fits me best."

Maisie shrugged. "It's cool. I'm just not into it. Maybe when we go to a dance or something, you could pick out what I should wear."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Otherwise my mother will get involved. If I say that you picked what I'm wearing, she won't want to step on your toes, or she'll talk to you about it."

I nodded. That actually didn't sound bad. In fact, it sounded good. Maisie's mother dressed like she knew quite a bit about clothes. I could learn a lot just watching her, and if I could talk to her, it would be even better.

The more I thought about, the more I liked the idea.

The "dinner" was just three frozen meals, microwaved and set on plates. I got the impression that this was how it usually went. Maisie's mother asked me questions, talked to me, talked about my mother. Maisie tuned it out and didn't say a word. While her mother and I talked, Maisie made the motions of eating, but when we got up from the table, I noticed that she'd barely eaten anything.

"Wanna walk by your new house?" Maisie offered. "It's really close. You'd never guess from the way we drove here..." She rolled her eyes at her mother's inept driving skills.

It was close, but I wouldn't say it was very close — it was about five blocks away. And, to tell the truth, I was sure that we walked the exact same route that Maisie's mother had driven.

The house still looked good: big, welcoming, homey. Still, no one was inside, so the windows were dark. I scanned them for the girl I'd seen earlier, but didn't catch a glimpse.

"Do you want to see if we can get inside?" Maisie asked.

"You mean break in?"

She shrugged. "Why not? It's your house."

"No," I said. "With my luck, Honororia's brother will come by and arrest me."

Maisie laughed, and lit a second cigarette off the end of her first.

"So, uh, which way is school?" I asked her.

Maisie waved her arm vaguely ahead. "It's kinda that way... and it's too far to walk in the snow. Flickerbridge is really big, area-wise. The school, and where you live now, are way on the other side of town. When the weather is nice enough, I walk to school. It drives my mother nuts, for some reason.

"Oh, and speaking of driving, did you know our mothers are going to take turns driving us to school?" She rolled her eyes.

Suddenly goosebumps suddenly ran up my arms, and I had the feeling that someone was watching me. I turned quickly and my eyes flew automatically to that same second-floor window, but there was nothing to see — or at least it was too dark inside to see anything.

"What?" Maisie asked.

"I felt like someone was looking at me," I said.

"Ooh! Maybe it was a ghost, Nancy Drew!" Maisie laughed.

"Don't call me that," I said.

She shrugged. "Okay, if it bugs you, I won't." She was silent a moment, then said, "Hey! We could go by Susan's house! Want to?"

Susan Ash was a friend of Maisie's and she was also in our class at BYHS. We started walking, and suddenly darkness fell. The streetlights came on, and at the same moment, my cell phone rang.

"Hi, Mom," I said.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked.

"Caller ID," I said. "What's up?" I couldn't tell whether she was still angry.

"I just wanted to know where you are. Are you coming home soon?"

"I guess," I said. "I can. I'm out walking with Maisie. We went by the new house."

"Again?" she enthused. "Do you like it?"

"Yeah, I like it. It looks pretty nice. It's big. How did you know that I was there already?"

"Ida told me."

"Mmm."

"Listen, I can come pick you up. I'll come now and chat with Ida until you get back to Maisie's."

"Okay," I said and we both hung up.

Maisie seemed surprised when no one was home at Susan's house, but I was pleased to see that it wasn't far from where I'd be living.

Maisie said, "I just realized that the three of us will be living in, like, a triangle. From here it's about five blocks to your house, and um, five blocks to mine."

"Cool!" I said.

"And we'll all suffer at BYHS together," she added.

© 2007 by Kaleigh Way