What I thought about Kandi was proven true on my walk to Brookside that same afternoon. “Where are you going?” a voice right behind me said.

It made me jump, and when I whipped around, sure enough, I was face to face with Kandi.

“You take the twenty-seven bus to school,” she panted. “But you walk this way after. And you keep on walking forever! Where are you going?”

I didn’t notice I was being followed ’cause sometimes when I get to thinking about my stories, everything else sort of blanks out. In this case I was in the middle of a big fight scene in my head where Lamar and Howler corner the guy who’s been faking the chain-rattlin’-ghost stuff. His name’s Mr. Butte and he’s meaner’n skunk spray. And now that he’s trapped in the corner of a basement, he’s desperate.

I like playing out scenes in my head before I write them. I’ll do the same scene over and over on my way to Brookside, fine-tuning it ’til I’m itching to put it on paper. My favorite is when I get to a scene near the end of a story where the villain is trapped in a basement, or pinned in an alleyway, or tossed headfirst inside a jail cell. I live for the clank of a jail cell. Doesn’t matter if the story is turning out good or bad, I finish just so I can hear the jail cell slammin’ shut.

Ma doesn’t get why I’m always scribblin’ in a notebook. “It’s not a journal?” she asked after I’d filled up the first one and was starting on a second.

“No, ma’am,” I told her. “It’s stories.”

“Like…made-up stories?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She studied me for a bit. “So it’s not private, then? I can read it?”

But I didn’t let her. I worried that she’d say how wonderful they were because she’s my ma, or that I’d be able to tell from her face they weren’t any good. Either way, I didn’t want her to see. I didn’t want anyone to see.

But back to Kandi sneaking up on me.

I didn’t notice it ’cause I was a long ways from school and my mind was with Lamar and Howler, down in a dark, eerie basement cornering evil Mr. Butte. That, and I don’t happen to have eyes in the back of my head.

I was mad at Kandi for spooking me, and even madder at me for getting spooked. And on top of getting mad and madder, I got an instant case of the worries. We were half a block from Brookside, and I sure couldn’t have Kandi knowing I spent my afters at an old-folks’ home!

I stopped walking. “Why you followin’ me?”

“Where are you going?” she asked, like her questions mattered way more than mine. “There’s nothing back this way!”

My mind was scrambling. “Well, there must be, or I wouldn’t be headed this way, right?”

“So where, then?”

I was stuck. And I was mad. And my mouth kept right on being stupid. “To the intersection of Nowhere and None of Your Business,” I said. “And how do you know I take the twenty-seven?”

She looked down. “Hilly’s on the twenty-seven. She says Troy’s pretty mean to you.”

I knew which one Troy was, but Hilly? I gave Kandi a good, hard squint. “Who?”

“Hillary Howard? She’s in Mr. Ulman’s sixth with Troy. Short brown hair. Bracelets?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, her.” Then I gave another good, hard squint. “Why’s she sit with him if she thinks he’s mean?”

Kandi looked away. “Being a girl is…complicated.”

Like that was any kind of answer?

Then real quick she switched subjects. “But the twenty-seven picks up on the west side, and you’re going due east.”

“Am I?” I said, ’cause I had no idea what direction I was headed, and hearing “due east” come out of someone with such long, shiny hair and fingernails painted like candy corn just seemed…strange.

“Sun’s over there,” she said, pointing behind us, then nodded in the direction I was headed. “So that’s east.”

“Well, doesn’t matter which direction I’m goin’,” I said. “You’ve got no business following me.”

“Look,” she said, “I’ve got to get home. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

I stared at her, thinkin’ that if lies were flames, she’d be one towerin’ inferno.

My dark look didn’t seem to affect her, though. She danced off with a little wave and called, “Tell Annie and Howler I say hi!”

“Howler’s a wolf,” I yelled after her.

“I know that!” she called back.

Which left me kinda dumbstruck.

How could she have picked that up from one little look at the page?

It didn’t help my case of the worries, that’s for sure. I headed on toward Brookside, wonderin’ if she could read me just as easy.