This girl has taken fashionably fierce to a new level.

“This is making me very nervous,” Jane squeaked as she and Carlos watched Evie through the open window. She had the high wedge shoes strapped onto her feet and was walking very slowly across the roof.

“Don’t worry!” Evie called back. “I got this.”

And it was true. She evidently did have this. She had somehow calculated the slope of the roof and the height and angle of the wedge shoes so that they counteracted each other. And she’d done such a precise job that she was literally standing straight up. She wasn’t slanted at all. The shoes and the roof were a perfect mathematical match.

“How are you not terrified right now?” Jane called out to Evie, grabbing Carlos’s hand and squeezing it.

“I’m from the Isle,” Evie said, as though this explained everything. But it didn’t for Carlos. He was from the Isle, too, and there was no way anyone could convince him to walk out on the roof wearing shoes like that. But that’s why Evie was a rock star. Nothing seemed to scare her. She was always up for whatever scheme anyone had in mind…including her own.

Carlos held his breath as Evie scurried to the edge of the roof and grabbed on to the top of the hazelberry tree. With one hand supporting her weight on the trunk of the tree, she leaned forward, and with the other hand, reached toward the nearest hanging bunch of hazelberry. But she couldn’t seem to reach, so she took another step toward the edge of the roof.

And that’s when one of her ankles twisted at a strange angle and Evie started to fall forward.

Evie screamed.

Jane screamed.

Even Carlos screamed.

Evie caught the tree trunk with her free hand, stopping herself from tumbling over the edge of the building. She was now positioned at a terrifying angle, her feet standing unsteadily on the roof, her body completely horizontal, suspended over the ground, and her hands clutching the trunk of the tree. If her grip were to give out or her feet were to slip, she would most certainly fall.

Gulping, Carlos glanced at the ground below. It was so far. He squeezed Jane’s hand back.

“Don’t worry!” Evie called out again. “I still got this!”

But now Carlos wasn’t so sure if that was true. “Just come back inside!” he called back to her.

But Evie didn’t seem to want to listen. Carlos watched her shuffle her feet closer to the edge of the roof and lean even farther forward toward the tree. Then she stretched one hand out and reached for the hazelberry.

“What is she doing?” Jane whispered anxiously to Carlos.

“I think she’s still going for the fruit!”

“Oh, gosh, no!” Jane exclaimed.

“Evie!” Carlos called out. “Just leave it! It’s not worth it!”

But Evie was ignoring her team captain again. And in that moment, Carlos realized it wasn’t because he was a bad leader. Evie was just a very bad follower. The girl operated entirely on her own.

Carlos watched, paralyzed, from the window as Evie’s grasp finally hooked around the hazelberry and she gave it a yank. The fruit came free, but the jerking motion seemed to throw Evie off-balance. She swayed a bit and Jane sucked in her breath.

But Evie was quickly able to right herself. She slowly brought her hand to her pocket and placed the hazelberry inside.

“How on earth is she going to get back now?” Jane asked Carlos, but Carlos just shook his head. He had no idea. He just hoped Evie knew the answer to that question.

And, apparently, she did. She placed both hands back on the bark of the tree, and with a grunt and a heave, pushed hard against the tree trunk.

In the next instant, time stood still. Carlos fought the urge to close his eyes. For a moment, Evie seemed to be suspended in midair, as though she were flying high above the ground.

“I can’t look!” Jane said, turning to bury her head in Carlos’s shoulder. Carlos gently rubbed her back, trying to soothe her fears. But he could do nothing to calm his own fears. If Evie fell, he’d never forgive himself.

Carlos heard a crash, and he blinked and focused back on the roof. Evie had managed to push herself all the way back until she was sitting on the slanted roof.

She tried to stand up, but her ankle must have been hurting from the strange twist. She quickly lost her balance and sat back down.

She’s not going to make it back here, Carlos thought with dread. She’s going to be stuck out on that roof. They’d have to tell Fairy Godmother. Fairy Godmother would have to send a helicopter or something to help pull her inside.

Pull her inside.

The words bounced around in Carlos’s brain before finally settling down somewhere they made sense.

“That’s it!” he shouted, startling Jane. “Evie, stay right there!”

He backed away from her and ran over to his bed. He pulled all the blankets and sheets off and began to tie the ends of them together.

“What are you doing?” Jane asked.

“I’m making sure my best friend doesn’t fall off that roof,” Carlos said.

Jane’s gaze fell to the makeshift rope Carlos was constructing and her eyes lit up with recognition. “Oh! Of course! I’ll help.” She ran to Jay’s bed and stripped his sheets, tying the ends together, creating her own rope. Then she found the end of Carlos’s rope and joined the two together with a tight knot.

Carlos dragged the giant rope toward the window and flung it outside. The end landed close enough for Evie to reach. “Grab hold!” Carlos commanded, and thankfully, this time Evie obeyed.

She clutched the end of the rope and Carlos and Jane heaved and heaved, looking like sailors pulling an anchor from the water. Finally, Evie made it to the window and collapsed back inside the dorm room.

She lay on the floor for a long moment, trying to catch her breath and composure. Then she sat up and pulled the hazelberry from her pocket. “I think this item needs to be worth two thousand points.”

And Carlos, Evie, and Jane all burst into laughter.