NINE

JACK

Thank God for Lucy. I’d have been really going crazy if not for her. By the time I left her house I actually felt pretty normal—normal enough, anyway, to give her a long and heartfelt kiss goodbye.

“You sure you have to go home now?” she murmured, and that’s all it took to set everything racing. Stay, stay, my body commanded. But instead I nodded reluctantly.

“I really do need to tell my parents what’s going on, and I don’t want it to be too late.” You told Lucy, you can tell them, my Good Boy mind insisted. They would probably march me straight to the hospital for a tox screen. But I couldn’t think of a better plan.

It was a long walk home from Lucy’s, and I was about halfway there when my phone rang. I peered at the screen. Dad.

“Hey, Dad, I’m almost home.”

But he wasn’t calling about me. “Jack, listen. We’re at the police station with Noah.”

“With Noah? Why, what happened?”

“I’ll tell you when we see you.”

“Is he all right?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Noah’s fine. He got himself in some trouble though, so we’re trying to sort it out. We might not be home for a couple of hours.”

“Oh. Okay. Anything I can do?”

“No, that’s okay. Don’t worry—nobody’s hurt. Just—your mom and I forgot to leave a note and didn’t want you to worry about us.” I hear Mom’s voice saying something in the background. “Oh, and can you let the dog out?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll be home in, like, twenty minutes.”

Geez. Noah was only thirteen, and I’d never known him to get into anything bad. On the other hand, I’d been pretty tied up in my own life, and Noah wasn’t a big talker. I didn’t really know much about what he’d been up to, apart from the hockey.

When I got home I let out Snowball and then went into Noah’s room. I didn’t search his closet or anything; I just kind of looked around, wondering what was going on and vaguely thinking I might see something that would give me a clue. Of course, I didn’t—it was just Noah’s room. He’d seemed okay to me. A couple of times lately he’d had some kids at the house, and they looked, I dunno, normal enough.

My wandering took me back to my room, where the rats were clinging to the side of the cage, begging to come out and play. The cage was getting pretty stinky, and I needed something to kill time while I waited, so I let them run around on my bed while I cleaned the cage. I took my time and did a good job, wiping the pee off both levels and washing the water bottle and food dish. When I was done it was still only ten o’clock.

I felt like I shouldn’t interrupt whatever was going on, and Dad had said Noah was fine, but I couldn’t help feeling uneasy. I hoped Noah knew enough not to get mouthy with the police. Finally I fired off a quick text to Dad. Everything okay?

It took a few minutes, but soon I got the ping of a reply. Yes. Home soon.

I couldn’t read my parents’ faces too well, but Noah’s expression was embarrassment mixed with shame rather than oh-my-god-my-life-is-ruined, which made me feel a whole lot better. He avoided my eye, ducked his head and bolted for his room. My parents flopped down on the livingroom couch, emitting twin sighs.

“So?”

They exchanged glances: You tell him. No, you tell him—I’m too fried. How much should we tell him? Finally, my dad straightened up and gave this baffled little laugh. Not an amused laugh.

“Noah was with some kids who got caught stealing stuff out of parked cars.”

“You’re kidding me.” I pictured a gang methodically stripping all the cars in a parking lot, so could not picture my little brother as part of it.

“That’s what I said.”

The long version of the story made more sense. Noah had been at a kid’s house with some other guys after school, ostensibly working on a project. But they got fooling around and by five hadn’t got too far, so they decided to keep working and then go for pizza. By the time they were walking back from the little neighborhood plaza where they’d eaten, it was dark, and I guess one kid started checking the doors on cars parked on the street as they walked by. And then he tried a few cars that were parked in driveways, and he actually got into some and cleaned the change out of the cup holders.

My dad sighed again. “He was caught when a woman flicked on her outdoor lights and stepped out with the recycling bin. The light caught him straightening up from her car with a handful of CDs. She identified him to the cops by his red hair.” A tired smile. “So he was caught red-handed and red-haired.”

“But Noah?”

“Sounds like none of the other kids, including Noah, had anything to do with it. But they didn’t stop him either.”

I thought back to some of the dumb things my friends had done over the years. “That’s not always as easy as it sounds. What were they supposed to do—tackle him?” I was mad, all of a sudden—mad for my quiet, awkward brother, who had probably been relieved to have made some friends, only to find himself knee-deep in this assholery.

“Mmm.” Dad didn’t sound convinced. “Anyway, we’d have been home sooner if Noah hadn’t refused to, as he put it, rat anyone out. It was the kid himself, once he realized he’d been clearly identified, who admitted he’d acted on his own. And the woman confirmed the other kids had been out on the street.”

Poor Noah. Of course he didn’t want to be the new kid whose claim to fame was throwing someone to the cops.

And that’s why I didn’t tell my parents—again—about my trip down the rabbit hole.

LUCY

After Jack left I got into the shower and stood under it for a long time. At first I was having nice smitten-girl thoughts, picturing how the muscles in his forearms flexed as he chopped vegetables, and the lovely way his whole face opens up when he smiles. Remembering our kisses. Okay, and fantasizing about having him in the shower with me—of course I was. But honestly, I was kind of glad he wasn’t actually in there yet. I had some not-so-great encounters with guys when I was playing teen runaway, and the fact that Jack wasn’t pushing things along too fast made me feel like I’d be able to trust him when the time came. Of course, there had been a fairly major distraction to deal with…

And with that my whole mood changed. She hovered in my mind, floating with her lost eyes and skinny legs, and although I did pity her, I had the sudden conviction that the Match Girl was not just sad—she was dangerous. The shower closed in on me, claustrophobic, and I was reminded of an old movie called Psycho. Ali had made me watch it with her; her dad is a film nerd with a huge DVD collection. You’d never believe a black-and-white movie with a corny soundtrack and no special effects would be scary, but it’s impossible to take a shower after watching that movie and not feel a bit freaked. That was how I felt now. I slammed shut the taps and yanked open the curtain, feeling stupid because of course she wasn’t there. Still, I barely toweled off before jamming my legs into my pj’s, feeling dumb again as the flannel stuck to the dampness, but damn, being naked is not a good thing when you’re spooked.

Then I checked the lock on the door and walked around turning on lights, trying to dispel every dark corner. I wondered how things were going for Jack, if his parents were sitting in Emerg with him at this very moment, and I almost texted him but decided I shouldn’t interrupt. I made a pot of tea and sat at the kitchen table, waiting for my mom to get home.

The look on Mom’s face—surprised, then sort of cautious, like she was girding herself for bad news—didn’t exactly encourage me to pour my heart out. But I really just wanted company anyway. And I could hardly blame her—I was always in my room when she got home, probably not asleep but reading or listening to music or finishing up homework. She’d poke her head in the door and say, Goodnight. Don’t stay up too late, and that would be that. Hard to say which of us was avoiding the other.

“Hi. You’re still up,” she said. A+ for observation.

“I made some tea—want a cup?”

She started to shake her head, then stopped herself. “Sure.”

I was surprised, and a little annoyed, at how glad I was when she said yes. It was just a stupid cup of tea, for God’s sake.

We sat together, and I poured for us both. It was my third or maybe fourth cup, but I didn’t care. Then my mom decided she was hungry too and made toast fingers for us both. That felt nice, a cozy remnant from my childhood.

We did How Was Your Day and Hasn’t the Weather Been Nice and then my mom said carefully, “You don’t often wait up for me. Not that I’m complaining, but—was there something you wanted to talk about?”

Yes, Mom, this boy and I are having a joint hallucination of a dead girl from an old story, and we don’t know what to do about it. I didn’t want to tell her that, didn’t want to ruin this nice almost-normal mother-daughter moment. Instead, I smiled at her and confessed, “I met a boy at school I really like. He cooked me dinner tonight.”

She grinned at me, and even though I could also see the relief on her face, it was still a nice, genuine smile, like she was really glad for me. She asked me the obligatory mom questions and teased me a bit, and then she yawned, looked at her watch and said, “I’m beat. And you should get to bed too.” As she headed toward the bathroom, she called over her shoulder, “Turn the lights out before you turn in. It’s lit up like Christmas in here.”

I went to bed and texted Jack.