KASEY HAD RECOVERED a bit by midday and we headed over to Golden Blades for her practice session. It looked like so much fun I wished I could play, but there were three reasons I couldn’t:

(A) I couldn’t roller skate;

(B) the Spitballers were a girls’ team; and

(C) I was too scared.

When we got there, the rest of the Spitballers were gathered in a tight knot over by one side of the track. In the middle was the guy with the beard I’d seen last week. As Kasey and I got closer, I saw with a shock that the bearded guy was Frost DeAndrews!

Okay. Someone’s just reminded me that not all of you have read my other books, so you won’t know who Frost DeAndrews is. Tbh, I have NO IDEA why anyone wouldn’t have read ALL the Middle School books, but I’ll do my best to fill you in. Frost DeAndrews is a fancy-schmantzy Sydney art critic who I met when I first came to Australia and who I’d accidentally involved in an unfortunate exploding toilet/rampaging zombie incident at Shark Bay. Despite that shark/zombie thing, Frost had liked my stuff, at one point comparing me to Wilhelm Van Purpleschpittel and the Neo-colonial Burble Movement—What? You haven’t heard of them?—and had gotten me an invite back to Australia to go to an art camp in the bush. So Frosty and I go way back. The big question was, what was a fancy art critic doing at the Sydney Spitballers roller derby practice?

“Mr. Khatchadorian. Delighted to see you again,” he said, in a not-particularly-delighted-to-see-you kind of voice. It didn’t bother me. That’s just the way old Frosty is. We shook hands.

“Frosty!” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question. Please remove your hand from my shoulder. And nobody calls me ‘Frosty’,” he said frostily. “Nobody.”

“I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Kasey said with a wink, and skated off to join the practice session.

“So,” I said, trying to recover, “why are you at Golden Blades, Fro—Mr. DeAndrews? It doesn’t seem like your sort of place.”

“My sister,” Frost DeAndrews replied. He waved a hand in the direction of the Spitballers. “She plays for them. Dee Stroyer.”

My jaw dropped so low my chin bounced off the floor. “Miss Bennett?” I said once I’d recovered. “She teaches at my school!”

“You’re a St. Mungo’s student?” Frost DeAndrews sounded surprised. Astonished, even. He raised an eyebrow. Just one.

I explained the whole Uncle Grey thing and Frost got excited. I could tell because he raised an eyebrow two millimeters when I got to the part about the John Olsen paintings, but otherwise he didn’t react.

When I was finished, he pursed his lips and looked at me with roughly zero enthusiasm. There was a silence that lasted about a year. I was beginning to remember how it was being around old Frosty. Eventually, just as I was considering making a run for it, he eyed the sketchbook I was carrying as if it were a dead fish.

“Your latest work?” he said, yawning.

I nodded, pleased he’d shown some interest. “I’ve been struggling for a while, to be honest, Mr. DeAndrews, but since I’ve started doing these Olsen-inspired drawings and paintings, things are getting better.”

Frost sat down and stuck out a hand. “I rather think I’ll be the judge of that,” he said sourly.

I handed over the sketchbook and sat next to him like a prisoner waiting for his sentence.