First off, I want to say that what happened was not my fault. Dawn says it was, and Darby can’t remember. But it’s not. I will tell you all the facts, just the facts, and nothing but the facts, and you’ll see for yourself.

The plan was to make sure Alex received one of those invitations. But we couldn’t just steal one and send it. We had to be certain Lily wasn’t already planning to ask him. Because if he got two invitations, he’d know for sure that something weird was up. So we decided to eavesdrop.

Now, my sisters and I have gotten really good at eavesdropping over the years. We have all kinds of methods. We know everything about this old house, including places to hide, vents that carry the sounds of voices up to the attic, and cracks that let you hear or watch things. And we’re trying to go high-tech, too. Last fall, we pooled our allowance and bought things like walkie-talkies and binoculars. We also got a little recording device we saw advertised in the back of a comic book. We tied it to Quincy’s collar and let him wander around. We were hoping to overhear Mom discussing our Christmas gifts, but instead, we got a half hour of Quincy snoring. We’re still working out the kinks in that system.

I’m slightly taller and a whole lot faster than the others, so they usually designate me for peeking in windows or for things that require a quick getaway. But it’s hard for me to keep still, especially for a long time. So for this mission, someone else was chosen.

“Leave it to me,” Dawn said, choosing herself. Something she likes to do — a lot.

From the shadowy spot on the stairwell, Dawn managed to hide long enough to overhear a few things. She found out that Mom and Mrs. Caldwell were going to start addressing cards to family, friends, and other obvious people at the dining room table while Lily and Burton sat on the porch swing and finalized the overall guest list. She also saw Mrs. Caldwell push Quincy away with her foot when she thought no one was looking.

“I almost tackled her,” Dawn grumbled when she came back with her report. “But for the good of the mission, I stopped myself.”

We decided to eavesdrop on Lily and Burton to see if Alex’s name came up. I opened our attic window, which was right over the porch, but all we could hear was some garbled murmuring. Because there was a little roof over the porch, it got in the way of us hearing them.

Now here’s the strange thing about Darby. She is the shyest of all of us. She hates talking to people outside of family and once paid Dawn ten dollars to pretend to be her when she had to give an oral report about Presidents’ Day to her class. When we were really little, she used to turn completely around in group pictures, because she’s camera shy, too. That’s why we have so many photos of her backside in between me and Dawn grinning. She faces the front now, but she usually looks down at her shoes.

Anyway, even though she’s shy around people, she’s also the most courageous one of us in every other way. She isn’t afraid of Mom’s bathroom ghost, she doesn’t run from bugs or rodents or snakes, and if someone dares her to do something, she’ll almost always do it. So we weren’t surprised when she turned around from the window and said, “I should climb out there.”

“I don’t know …” I said.

“It’ll be fine,” Darby said. “Y’all can keep hold of my feet while I get out on the roof. I’ll be able to hear them from there.”

It took a few minutes for her to convince us. Finally, we agreed, mainly because we were running out of time, and it was our only option. But we insisted that she wear a bicycle helmet.

Darby changed into long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, because the porch roof was hot and rough. Then she put her knee pads on over her pants and strapped on her helmet. “Let me climb partway out, and then you grab hold of my legs. Once you have a good grip on me, I’ll stretch out farther.”

As soon as she climbed out the window, Dawn grabbed hold of her left leg, and I grabbed hold of her right. Darby waited a few seconds and then inched forward, little by little, until she was flat on her stomach.

She glanced back at us. Her face was bright pink, but she had a big gleamy smile on her face. “This is great!” she whisper-shouted.

I just nodded back at her. At that point, Dawn and I only had ahold of her ankles, and I was concentrating too hard on what I was doing to talk back to her. Dawn also didn’t say anything.

After a while, I started to get tired. Dawn must have, too, because she whispered, “How much longer?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered back.

My hands were getting sweaty and I was afraid I might lose my grip.

“Hurry up!” I hissed out the window, but my words seemed to get lost in the breeze. I wasn’t sure if Darby heard them.

We continued like that for a while longer, with me trying not to think about itchy spots on my body or all the jitters trapped inside me. Of course, when you try hard to not think about things, you only think about them more.

Then we heard a noise behind us. The tapping of toenails on our wooden floor, followed by low doggie whines.

“Quincy is up here,” I whispered.

“I know,” said Dawn. “Just ignore him. Poor thing’s probably tired of being mistreated by that woman.”

I could ignore Quincy, but I was worried that he wouldn’t ignore us. Sure enough, a moment later, I could feel a cold wet nose on my calf.

“Eeep!” I started. “Go away, Quincy!” But he wouldn’t. He just whimpered a little and looked at me with those sad brown eyes. “Git!”

“Ignore him,” Dawn commanded without looking at me or him. I could see little glistens of sweat on her forehead and upper lip. She was having a hard time holding on to Darby, too.

I tried to ignore him. I really did. And this next part is not my fault.

What happened was, I closed my eyes and tried to block out everything but my grip on Darby. I tried to forget the itches and that heebie-jeebie, ants-in-the-pants feeling I had. And then Quincy licked me right on the ticklish part of my leg, behind my knee.

I opened my eyes, shouted something like “Yah!” and let go of Darby’s foot. I didn’t mean to — it just happened. I saw her foot disappear out the window, and Darby slid sideways, toward the left. Dawn shouted, “Hey!” and her body started to get pulled through the window.

It all happened so fast, I didn’t know how to react. I just sort of screamed, and my arms kept flailing around. I couldn’t grab Darby’s foot again because it was now too far away. Meanwhile, Quincy kept jumping and turning in circles, thinking I was playing with him.

“Help!” Dawn said as her feet started coming off the floor.

I went to grab her but tripped over Quincy and ended up falling into her instead. That’s when she let go of Darby.

We heard a long scraping sound followed by a whoosh and someone screaming.

“Oh no!” Dawn cried.

Both of us ran downstairs as fast as we could, Quincy following right behind because he still thought it was part of a game. The whole time, Dawn and I were making little wailing sounds and pushing each other out of the way. I thought for sure we’d just killed our sister.

The first thing I saw when I made it to the porch was Mrs. Caldwell. She was trotting around in little circles, saying “Oh my!” and making the same flapping motions with her arms that I’d been making upstairs. Lily and Mom were at the porch railing, looking down. I raced to their side and saw Darby lying on top of our big althea bush, which was now crushed all to pieces. Leaves and flowers were scattered everywhere, which was probably why Burton was sneezing in the far corner of the porch.

“Don’t move!” Mom was saying to Darby.

“But it prickles!” Darby said.

I’d never been so happy to hear her talk in all my life.

Eventually, they decided she didn’t have any broken bones and they could help her up. As I started to tromp down the porch steps to help, Mom whirled on me and said, “Stay back! You three have done enough!” Her eyes were like the rockets’ red glare.

I sat on the porch swing and watched as Lily and Mom gently pulled Darby to her feet. Mrs. Caldwell stood by the railing and pretended to help by saying things like “Easy now. Watch her head.” Burton just kept sneezing.

While I sat there, I saw a paper on the seat next to me. The guest list! Glancing around to make sure no one was looking, I picked it up and checked the names. Alex wasn’t on there.

Dawn was peering around the frame of the front door.

“Is Darby still alive?” she asked.

I nodded.

Dawn’s head disappeared as soon as Mom, Lily, and Darby started coming up the steps. I set down the list and stood up. Darby was covered in leaves, flower petals, and tiny twigs, and she was hiccupping loudly. She also had a funny smile on her face. For a while, they made her move her arms and legs this way and that and peered into her eyes to make sure she was truly all right. Since Burton couldn’t stop sneezing, Mrs. Caldwell took him home.

As soon as their car pulled away, Mom said, “What on earth did you girls think you were doing?”

I didn’t know what to say, and Dawn was still off somewhere — she often hides and tries to pretend she had no part in things.

“Hic! It was a dare,” Darby said. “I bet them — hic! — that I could do that.”

“Why, Darby?” Lily asked. “You could have broken your neck.”

Darby shrugged. For some strange reason, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

Mom ordered us to go find Dawn and head up to our room until she said we could leave. She needed to take headache medicine and figure out what to do with us.

“I’ve never been so disappointed in you girls in my life,” she said.

It always makes us feel bad when she says that.

Dawn was already in our room when we got up there. We apologized to Darby and said we were glad she hadn’t died. Then we bickered for a while about whose fault it was, until Darby said it didn’t matter and that it was kind of fun anyway.

“Well, it was all for nothing,” I grumbled. “Lily isn’t inviting Alex, so we’re back to square one.”

“No, we aren’t, because look what I managed to get,” Dawn said with a sly smile. She reached underneath her pillow and pulled out an invitation. “Now we can invite him.”