Our second week of camp is field-trip week. It’s like they felt bad about making us suffer through tennis for a whole week and decided to reward us by putting us on a bus and taking us as far away from Hitchcock as we can get in an hour. Six Flags, Frisbee golf, kayaking at the state park.

The further away we get from Hitchcock, the easier it is to forget about the tornado. Each day, we settle into life at the McLarens’ more and more. I even catch Cammie calling it “home.”

By Friday, I’ve got about a dozen mosquito bites. The last day of school feels like ages ago. Kiersten and I are sitting in the rear of the bus, heading back to Hitchcock from laser tag, when I decide to finally tell her about Gregg.

I pull my phone out of my backpack and open the email thread.

Kiersten stares out the window of the bus—long rides always make her carsick—listening to music on her iPhone.

I tap her shoulder and she pulls out the earbuds.

“I have to tell you something,” I say.

“You sound so serious. Did something happen?”

I shake my head and take a deep breath, my cheeks already flushing, and not from the sunburn upon sunburn this week at camp has given me. That’s the weirdest thing about the emails, how they always make me blush. Even though I don’t like Gregg, they still make me feel kind of…special, I guess, to have a boy email me that many times.

“It’s about Gregg.”

The tone in Kiersten’s voice changes, like she’s already ready to laugh. “What about Gregg?”

“You can’t tell anyone,” I say. “Promise. Promise you won’t tell Gabby.”

“Jeez, Maddie. What’s your problem with Gabby?”

“I don’t have a problem with Gabby,” I say. Why don’t I just trust Kiersten with this secret about Gregg, like how I always used to with all of my other secrets?

“Are you still mad at her about the dance?”

“No,” I say, surprised by how the word comes out, how it feels like a lie.

“That was two whole weeks ago. And it’s not like they’re suddenly boyfriend and girlfriend. You’re the one who lives with him.”

“I know.” I’m still clutching the phone in my hand like it’s some kind of weapon.

Kiersten lowers her voice, though there’s no way anyone can overhear on the bus. It’s so loud in here I can barely hear my own thoughts. “Anyway, so what did you want to tell me about Gregg. I swear I’ll keep it a secret, whatever it is.”

I hand the phone to her. “This,” I say. “All of them. It’s been going on for a little over a week.”

Kiersten scrolls through, laughing as her thumb swipes up and up and up. “What are you going to do?”

“You think I know? Hide under a blanket until it stops? File a restraining order?”

“Nah, you don’t want to get the police involved.”

“Kiersten, I was kidding.”

“Right.”

Now it’s real. Gregg did send me that many emails. I hadn’t exaggerated it in my head, like I sometimes could with Avery, like that time he sat next to me on the bus after school and I was so sure it meant something. There’s no reading between the lines here. Gregg doesn’t just like me. Gregg is obsessed. With me.

“When’s the last time you saw him in person?”

“Not since that day at the library. I think his family’s on vacation this week, so he’s not in town. But eventually I’m going to run into him. Hitchcock’s small!”

“Do you think Avery knows?”

“I hope not,” I say. “Do boys really talk about that stuff? Like we do?”

“Definitely not like we do.” Kiersten hands me back my phone. “If I look at this screen anymore, I will barf. And no, not because of Gregg’s love for you.”

I glare at her and pretend to zip my lips.

“Sorry,” Kiersten says. “They’re sealed. I promise.”

It turns out reading the emails on my phone really did make Kiersten feel like she was going to hurl, so for the rest of the bus ride back, she stares out the window while I flip through them.

We don’t exactly reach a conclusion about what I should do, but I come to my own: pretend it’s not happening until it goes away. That could work, right? I delete the emails, one by one. It takes the whole bus ride, but when we pull up to the rec center, they’re all gone.

Not one shred of evidence of Gregg’s so-called crush on me.

It’s only in my head. And Kiersten’s now, too.

—

After dinner that night, I’m lying on Mom and Dad’s bed, watching a show on their TV, when my phone buzzes.

Another Gregg email.

So much for in-box zero.

But that’s not what it is this time. If only. It’s an email with the subject line Lost Dog.

My finger trembles as I click to open it.

Hello,

I saw your posting in the supermarket the other day and wanted to reach out to you. We lost our cat, Blinky, in the tornado. It’s such a hard thing to lose someone you love unexpectedly. I wish you all the luck in the world in finding your Hank.

Sincerely,

Effie Holden

I let out my breath. It isn’t good news or bad news. It’s no news at all.

Watching TV with Mom and Peg last night, I saw a special program about the tornado. They spotlighted stories about people that lost their pets. There was one lady saying how she couldn’t find her ferret. While the newscaster had the microphone in front of her mouth, one of the rescue workers discovered her ferret. She was so excited she was shaking and could barely hold on to her wiggly little guy.

“If I lost that ugly thing in the tornado, I don’t think I’d be so bent out of shape,” Peg said with a laugh.

But I saw Mom wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.

So what if ferrets are a little stinky and weird? That lady loved her ferret. That’s what makes it a pet, and not just any old animal. Love.

When the crew cleared off our lot, filling up dumpster after dumpster with rubble once we’d finished recovering anything valuable, they double- and triple- and quadruple-checked. Hank simply wasn’t there. It was like he’d vanished.

I write back to Effie, thanking her for thinking about me and Hank. I tell her how sorry I am about her cat, and then I shut down the computer for the night.

Mom and Dad are watching some lame grown-up movie downstairs with Avery’s parents and Peg and Frank, and Avery is over at a friend’s house, so it’s just me and Cammie upstairs. Well, and the cats. It’s not just Snickers. There’s also Louie and Stella. None of them are all that friendly either; they’re just your ordinary cats.

When I open our bedroom door, I accidentally step on one of Cammie’s library books.

“Jeez, Cammie. Can’t you pick up your stuff?”

“Sorry.” He sticks his head out from the tent he’s crouched under. Peg helped him string sheets from the bookcase to his bed to make a tent. He started sleeping underneath it in a sleeping bag, instead of in his bed. He even calls it his lair. I call it sleeping on the floor with the cats.

I know he’s not going to actually pick up after himself—he never listens to me, only to Mom and Dad—so I pick up his books one by one and stack them on the bottom shelf of the nightstand, where Peg keeps all her knitting magazines.

“Someone saw our poster and emailed me.” I climb into bed and pull a sheet over myself. The McLarens don’t have air-conditioning, so it gets pretty hot in our bedroom.

Cammie stands up fast, taking the sheet with him. He pulls it off his head and the whole contraption crashes to the ground. “Wait! What?” His hair sticks up from the static.

“False alarm,” I say. “She lost her cat in the storm. She wanted to say she felt bad for us.”

“Oh,” Cammie says. “Nobody else emailed you?”

I shake my head.

“Bummer.” Cammie tries to put his tent back together, but it’s too hard for him, and he eventually gives up and climbs into his bed. After we both read for a while, I turn off the light.

“ ’Night,” I say.

“ ’Night, Maddie.”

As I lie in bed, I listen to everyone downstairs watching the movie. Peg and Frank have a little trouble hearing, so the volume is turned up super high.

I hear the front door open and footsteps on the stairs. Somebody must have just dropped off Avery. A sliver of light shines under our door, and then the bathroom fan comes on for a second. I can never figure out which switch to flip for the bathroom light either. Footsteps down the hall, and then the door closing in the room next to ours.

There’s that jingle again. The Hank jingle. But I know Avery didn’t bring Hank home. If he did, I’d hear his four paws tapping all over the hardwood floors, doing his little I-can’t-decide-where-to-sit dance. If he did, Hank would be whimpering outside my door, begging to be let inside, to sleep on the end of my bed or Cammie’s.

But the jingle is only Avery’s keys.