I kept my eye on Silver after lunch, watching from a distance as she ambled down the hall. Jeremy, whose overly gelled hair looked like a plastic cap on top of his head, was on her left, talking a mile a minute. Dylan and Nathan struggled to stay in step on her right. Silver’s large brown purse, slung across her chest, swung back and forth along her hip. Cascades of hair tumbled down her back, and I could see the outline of her cell phone in the back pocket of her jeans. The soles of her purple flats were bright red. She nodded at something Jeremy said, but as far as I could tell, she was not doing anything out of the ordinary to get his attention. If anything, Jeremy was struggling to get her attention. And I might have been wrong, but from where I stood, it didn’t look like Silver was all that excited about giving it to him.

Mr. Pringle’s voice came over the loudspeaker, making me jump. “Wren Baker, please report to the office. Wren Baker to the office.”

“Ooooooooooo!” Everyone in the hallway turned to look at me. The principal had never called me to his office before. I could feel the skin along my neck getting hot, the heat spreading up to my ears. Inside my chest, my heart hammered like a snare drum.

“What’d you do?” Cassie asked.

I shrugged and shifted my backpack along my shoulder, trying to appear nonchalant. “Nothing.” But my brain was racing. The last time I got called down to the main office was when I forgot my lunch in fifth grade and Momma brought it over for me. I hadn’t forgotten my lunch today, and I couldn’t think of anything else that would require my presence in the main office. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if I remembered what the main office looked like.

It came back to me, of course, as I went inside. Mrs. Pool, the head secretary, was still sitting behind her desk, with the same collection of rubber trolls lined up behind her keyboard. Tufts of electric-blue hair stuck up like flames from the tops of their heads, and their naked, miniature bodies were smudged around the edges, as if someone had been squeezing them. There was the same collection of glossy posters on the wall behind her—ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING, THIS IS A NO-BULLY ZONE, and KEEP CALM AND STUDY ON!—as well as the teachers’ mailboxes on the opposite side. In fact, the only thing that seemed out of place was the person sitting in one of the red chairs outside of Mr. Pringle’s door.

I blinked. “Dad?”

He turned toward me and got up out of the chair. “Hi, sweetheart.” He smiled—a great big smile that stretched across his face and crinkled the corners of his eyes. I knew right away that something was wrong. Dad never smiles like that unless something bad has happened.

“Dad? What’s going on? Why’re you here?”

“I have to talk to you, honey.” He was still smiling, but his green eyes told a different story. I could feel the little hairs on the back of my neck start to rise, and something inside my belly flip-flopped.

Mr. Pringle came out of his office then, and nodded when he saw me. “Hello, Wren. Thank you for coming down so quickly. Why don’t we all go talk in my office?” He stepped back as Dad and I walked into the small, air-conditioned room. I brushed against Mr. Pringle’s large belly as I moved past him through the doorway, and prayed that he didn’t notice. Mr. Pringle adjusted his suit jacket as he sat, and leaned forward slightly. “So I asked you to come down here, Wren, because your father has some news for you!” He was using that brightly cheerful voice, too. It was as fake as Dad’s smile, and totally unnerving.

“Wren,” Dad said, turning in his chair so that he faced me. “I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say.”

My heart did a double flip-flop. “Okay.”

Dad took both of my hands in his. There were deep, dark shadows beneath his eyes. “Momma’s in the hospital.”

The double flip-flop turned into a squeeze. “Why? What happened?”

“She went in this morning for a check-up, and they found out that she was sick. She needs special medicine and special doctors. She’s on her way to a hospital where they can give her that. It’s far away, though, in Ohio. I’m going to go stay there for a while until she gets better.”

My brain was swimming with information. I tried to backtrack to the chain of events that had occurred this morning, but the first thing that came to mind was the family sandwich. Thinking about it now, I started to cry.

Dad pulled me toward him and hugged me close. “It’s going to be okay, Wren. It really is. I promise.”

“But wait, what actually happened?” I pulled away. “She was okay this morning, wasn’t she? You said she was just tired. Did she get hurt?”

Dad shook his head. The expression on his face was grave. “No, she didn’t get hurt. I don’t even know all the details yet, honey, but it has to do with something inside her head.”

“Her head?” I repeated. “Like a brain tumor?” I’d known a girl named Wendy Titans in the third grade whose mother had gotten a brain tumor. Wendy said they’d done an operation on her that lasted fourteen hours and she still died.

Dad shook his head. “No, Wren. Nothing like a brain tumor.”

“Cancer?”

“No, honey, not cancer, either. Like I said, I’m not sure what it is exactly, but that’s why she’s going to a special hospital. They’re going to find out. And then she’s going to get better.” He ran his arms up and down the length of my arms. “Now, listen to me. Aunt Marianne is going to take care of you and Russell while I’m away.”

Dad’s words sounded far away, like he was talking to me from another room. Nothing was registering. My brain was still stuck back on Momma. What could possibly be wrong inside her head? What could have happened to her between the time I left this morning and now? Why didn’t Dad know? “Wait,” I said. “What hospital is Momma in?”

“It’s a hospital in Akron, which is a town in Ohio,” Dad said. “The doctors took her down this morning. I’m going to drive there tonight. It’ll take me most of the night to get there.”

“Ohio?” I repeated. “How long will you be gone?”

“Two weeks at the most.” My eyes widened. “Maybe not even that long,” Dad said quickly. “I’ll know more when I get down there.”

“Why can’t Grandma come up to stay with us?” My breath was starting to come in little spurts. I felt light-headed.

“Grandma’s on her around-the-world cruise,” Dad said. “Remember?” He fingered a piece of my hair, twirling it between his first two fingers. He seemed lost in thought. “She won’t be back until Thanksgiving.”

“But … why … I mean, Aunt Marianne …” My voice was barely above a whisper.

“I know you still don’t know her very well yet, honey,” said Dad quickly, “but she is family, and I really think that—”

“And Silver …” My eyes filled with tears.

“What about Silver?” Dad dropped my strand of hair. “Is there a problem with her?”

“You don’t have any issues with her here, I hope.” Mr. Pringle’s bushy eyebrows arched up along his forehead. “I’ve talked to her a few times since she arrived. She seems to be a very pleasant girl.”

I shook my head. “No. It’s just that …”

“Just what, honey?” Dad touched my arm.

Just what? Just … everything! Sure, she was my cousin, but it was still Silver Jones, for crying out loud! The most beautiful, most popular, most everything girl in the whole school who, as far as I could tell, didn’t even remember my name, much less that I existed in the same hemisphere! I was going to have to live with her? And not just me—but my little brother Russell, too—who was easily one of the most annoying people on the planet?

“It’s just …” I started again, and then shook my head, thinking of Momma. This was no time to be selfish. “It’s nothing.”

“You sure?” Dad pulled me in for another hug.

No, I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything. It felt as if the rug I was standing on had just been pulled out from underneath my feet. As if my arms and legs were up in the air, and any moment now I was going to come crashing back down. “Yeah,” I inhaled with a shaky breath. “Yeah, I guess.”

Dad squeezed me tight. “Mr. Pringle here has been nice enough to make all the arrangements for you while I’m gone. You can call me if there’s an emergency, but he’s here, too, in case anything comes up.” He stood up and rested his hand on top of my head. “I have to go talk to Russell now, honey. And then they’ll bring him over here after school. You’ll both go home with Aunt Marianne this afternoon.”

I nodded dumbly, but my head was spinning. It was too much information to take in all at once.

Dad leaned over and kissed me on top of my head. “Oh!” He dug into his front pocket. “Before I forget. Momma asked me to give you this.” He took out a silver necklace and placed it in my hand. “She wants you to keep it safe for her. Just until she comes back.”

I held out my hand, watching the slinky chain coil into a pool in the center of my palm. The charm on it was really only half a charm, broken long ago, Momma said, after a bike accident. On the front of the medallion, half of the tiny bird that was left stared out at me, its wing and body already worn smooth from Momma’s fingers. Below it were the letters GR, part of a word or a name, the other letters gone forever.

Dad squatted down next to me and put a hand on my knee. “She’s worn that necklace since she was a little girl. I don’t know if she’s ever taken it off before.”

I shook my head, the necklace blurring through my tears.

“I think it’s Momma’s way of giving you a little piece of herself while she’s gone.” Dad squeezed my knee. “You’ll take good care of it, won’t you?”

I nodded. I knew Momma was trying to be nice. But I didn’t want her necklace. It scared me. What if this was the last part of her I would ever have? And what if, instead of keeping it safe for her, she really wanted me to have it to remember her by, in case she never came home again?