^«Hey,^» I said, walking up to Connor a couple of days later at his locker.

He turned around to face me. “Hey. How’s Spaghetti?”

“Better.” I had spent as much time with him as I could, trying to motivate him to get well and eat his hay, even offering it to him with my feet. I also made sure he ate his llama ration. My efforts seemed to be working.

“That’s good,” Connor said. “Do you know why he’s named Spaghetti? Seems like a weird name for a llama.”

“Denise told me he’s named after spaghetti westerns.”

“Oh,” Connor said. “What are those?”

I shrugged. “No idea. Maybe movies full of cowboys eating lots of spaghetti.”

Connor nodded. “Weird.”

I saw Zion walking down the sidewalk toward us. “Hey, Zion,” I called to him. He was concentrating so hard on watching his feet, he didn’t hear me. “Zion!” I called again.

He looked up, seemingly surprised again that someone was talking to him. I can’t exactly wave to get someone’s attention, so I jumped up and down a little bit. “Zion,” I said again as I bounced. He finally saw me.

He stopped in front of me and Connor. “Hi, Aven,” he said softly.

“This is Connor,” I told him, and the two boys gave each other a little mini-wave.

“You’re in my history class,” Zion told Connor. “I’ve, uh, heard you in there.”

Connor barked and shrugged his shoulders. “You and everyone else.”

“Connor has Tourette syndrome,” I explained to Zion. “He can’t help it.”

“Oh. I didn’t think he could.” Zion looked down at his sneakers, then back up at Connor. “I’m sorry.”

Connor shrugged again. “It’s okay.”

“Anyway,” I said, “I was just about to ask Connor if he wanted to come over after school and do some investigating.” I eyed Zion seriously. “I live at this theme park called Stagecoach Pass—”

“Yeah, I know that place,” said Zion.

“Oh, good,” I said. “We’re trying to figure out why no one ever sees the owner. We think he might have even been . . . ” I looked around and whispered, “murdered.”

Zion took a step back. “That sounds scary.”

Connor barked. “Trust me, there’s nothing scary about that place.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “This morning, when I left the apartment, I found a dead lizard right at the bottom of the stairs.” I sighed and nodded. “Yep. I think someone was trying to send me a message.”

“What kind of message?” Zion asked.

“Stop butting your nose in where it doesn’t belong, or I’ll send you some dead lizards,” I said. “Obviously.”

Connor shook his head. “I don’t know. Stuff dies in the desert all the time. That’s kind of what the desert does—kills stuff.”

“Well, you guys should come over. I’ll show you the dead lizard and we can search the storage shed more.”

Connor slammed his locker shut. “I can’t. My mom needs me to wait at home for the maintenance guy. For some reason our hot water won’t work.”

“Oh, that stinks,” I said.

“I can’t either,” said Zion. “And I’m not sure I want to get involved with murders and dead lizards and stuff. I don’t know if my parents would like it.”

“It’s only one murder and one dead lizard.” I rolled my eyes and tapped my foot. “How about tomorrow? It’s Saturday.”

“Yeah,” Connor said. “I can come over early.”

We both looked at Zion. “Okay,” he said. “But if anyone sends you any more dead animals, I’m out.”

“Great,” I said. “I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

As Connor, Zion, and I walked together down the sidewalk, I heard someone do that coughing thing when they sneak a word into the cough, but they’re not actually being very sneaky about it at all.

And the word was freaks.