I shrugged. "AU right" I said.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Really all right?" she asked. She leaned back in her chair and looked thoughtfully into my eyes, toward my soul. I looked back. I tried to be thoughtful, too, but my mind wandered to how lavender eye shadow, or any color really, doesn't look as good at the end of the day when a person's eyes start to get red and watery. Probably this is even caused by bits of powder flaking off and falling in.

I snapped back into focus and said, "I'm okay. I'm fine."

"Your story," said Miss Epler, "seemed a little angry. A little morbid."

"It did?" I said.

She nodded. "Perhaps because every single character dies," she said. "In awful ways."

"Wasn't that the idea, though?" I asked. "Tragedy?"

"Tragedy, yes. Apocalypse, no. You might want to leave one teeny-tiny shred of hope and redemption, just for contrast."

"Oh," I said. "Okay."

Miss Epler seemed to be waiting for more. I thought I knew what, so I said, "Do you want me to write it over?"

But she shook her head. "No. I know you could. I'm not worried about that. What worries me is that someone who writes such a story might actually be feeling, well... somewhat unhappy."

That was one I hadn't thought of. I leaned forward on my elbows. There was an owl's face in the fake wood grain on the desktop. Almost all fake wood grain has an owl's face in it somewhere. I traced it with a ringer.

'It's just a story,' I Said. "It doesn't mean anything."

"Stories don't mean anything?" asked Miss Epler after a pause.

More carefully then, I said, "Not all of them."

She clasped her hands to her chest raised her eyes, and said, "I think I can feel my heart breaking!"

She was joking, and I relaxed a little and smiled. I thought we were moving out of the serious part But Miss Epler turned thoughtful again and asked, "By the way, how did that friend thing work out? The one with the what was she? A centipede or a slug or something? Something horrible. How is that going?"

I looked down at the plastic wood grain again. I reached for my pencil to draw in the rest of the owl, then decided I'd better not I wasn't thinking about the friend thing. I was keeping it in a separate compartment with the door shut There was a lot a person could do by herself. Like read. At least in books there were people who were faithful even unto death, people who didn't Just forget about each other for no reason that you could think of.

"It's okay," I said.

There was a hesitant knock on the door frame. Alice Dahlpke was standing there.

"Oh, hi, Alice!" said Miss Epler. "Come on in and join us."

Alice tippy-tapped over and lowered herself into a desk. She twirled some strands of hair around a finger and raised the corners of her mouth in an uncertain smile.

"Well, here we all are," said Miss Epler brightly. Then, as if she had just remembered something, she checked her watch and said, "Oh, my. Listen, I have to go make a very quick phone call. Do you mind? Can you hang on for a few minutes? I'll be right back. You girls chat."

She whirled out of the room and clip-clopped down the hall. There was the thud of a heavy door falling shut, then quiet.

The room was still. Afternoon sunlight poured in silently under the yellowed shades. It gave an intricate golden edge to the hunched- over shape of Alice examining her split ends.

"So," I said, "what was your story about?"

"A nuclear war," she said.

"Does everybody die?" I asked her.

"All except the mutants," she said.

"We were supposed to leave a shred of hope," I said. "For contrast."

Alice seemed surprised. "Mutants can be hopeful," she said. "Mutation is a way of surviving."

"That might be true for viruses, but I'm not sure it's exactly true for people," I said. "Although maybe if you explain the scientific part..." Suddenly I had a realization. "Did you use this same story for science?"

Alice nodded.

"You creep! Why didn't I think of that?"

Alice smiled one of her huge smiles. (Here is how Alice's outside appearance is like her insides: untidy and murky, with bright and dazzling flashes, which are her smiles on the outside-almost embarra.s.sing in their wideness and joyfulness-and her understanding of subjects like math and science on the inside. Under her mousy brown strings of hair lives a great intelligence. Geometry is candy for Alice, but everyday life is a foreign country to her. Sometimes even walking looks like something she is trying out for the first time.) We sat there for a few minutes, waiting. I hummed and looked around the room. Alice held herself tensely, as if she would love to drum her fingers or jiggle her foot if only she could remember to do that.

"So," I said.

I didn't know what I was going to say next but it seemed we might as well talk. I tried to think of something Alice and I had in common. I had to go pretty far back "Do you remember that time in Girl Scouts when we went horseback riding?" I asked.

"Yes," said Alice.

"That was fun, wasn't it?" I said.

Alice smiled, but she didn't say anything. I had expected to get at least two or three minutes out of this topic. Where was Miss Epler anyway? I tried again. "I wish there were horses around here," I said. "I love horses."

"There's a horse farm in West Bird Township," said Alice.

"You're kidding," I said. "Where?"

Alice furrowed her dusky brow in thought and pulled the tips of hair she was sucking on from the corner of her mouth. "Somewhere out by that greenhouse on Walters Road. We've driven by it in the car."

This piece of information pierced me like an arrow. I had spent whole years of my life, in grade school, reading over and over again about the G.o.dolphin Arabian, Black Beauty, National Velvet, and all those ponies out on Chincoteague. I had dreamed of riding bareback over the dark moors or through the pounding surf at sunrise, but except for that one long-ago Girl Scout field trip, which was pretty short and pretty tame, I had hardly even been near a horse. How could I not have known that there were horses right in West Bird Township? Why hadn't anyone ever told me?

At first I felt cheated. But then a different feeling, like putting on old clothes and finding money in the pockets, took over, and I was filled with a desire to see those horses.

"Do you think you could find it?" I asked Alice. "Do you want to go there, on a hike?"

And that is how I found myself, one Sat.u.r.day in October, hiking to West Bird Township with Alice Dahlpke.

I should mention that Miss Epler was thrilled when she returned to find us making plans. She seemed to forget why we had come; you would have thought the whole reason was to set up this hike. I didn't remind her of our c.r.a.ppy disaster stories, and fortunately Alice didn't either. Probably she had forgotten, too.

It dawned on me later that maybe that was why we were there: Miss Epler hoped that a friendship would spring up between Alice and me and rescue both of us from friendless despair. I didn't know why she thought we would be a good match. Maybe all alone people seem alike to a not-alone person. It was nice of her to try.

nine.

WE HAD APPLES, SO THE HORSES WOULD COME CLOSE TO US, and cookies. I wore my CPO jacket, which of course is not an actual CPO jacket like everyone else gets to wear ("They look sloppy," says my mother), but more like a heavy wool pullover shirt with a loop and b.u.t.ton at the neck. It used to belong to my cousin Mike, and when I wear it, I feel not only warm but also athletic and adventurous. I don't know what Alice was wearing, probably something shapeless and colorless. Actually, if I think about it, she was probably wearing green pants that were too short, thin socks sliding down into beat-up blue Keds, a striped windbreaker, and a light gray turtleneck. Alice is the only person in the world who has a turtleneck this color, because after the first one was made, the manufacturer realized that it was a big mistake.

Big October clouds ambled peacefully across the deep blue sky. They covered up the sun for twenty minutes at a time. Whole streets, entire hillsides were left in shadow. Then the sun would pop out, and the shadow would be peeled back down the street, across the hillside. We decided it would be quicker to cut through the woods, so down we skidded, hopping and tripping over roots and fallen branches all the way to the bottom, where the creek trickled along next to the railroad tracks. Partway up the next hill we sat on a rock in a pa.s.sing patch of sunlight and looked back at our town. Because now we were in Birdvale. The trees and rooftops of Seldem looked so tranquil, so orderly. The cookies were store-bought oatmeal with the marsh-mallow cream in between and tasted exquisite.

"Do you like that new song in chorus?" I asked Alice.

She thought for a moment, then started to sing. I sang, too. I love singing in harmony, even with a wobbly soprano like Alice. She is wobbly but fearless. My own voice is unexceptional but reliable, which is all anyone expects from an alto. The song we were singing there on the rock was a semidopey one called "The Stars That Guide the Voyager," but it had some good parts, like the long, tricky run on the word be.

Lots of different notes, no place to take a breath, hard to do. After that we did "Adoramus Te," which makes everyone feel like a vocal champion because it's simple, and not too high, but sounds mysterious and holy and is in Latin. Then it was time to stand up and move again.

As we crested the hill, we were startled to see more hills rising in front of us. For some reason we both thought Bird Township would be right there. We kept going, though, down and up, down and up, down and up until finally we came to an open field. On the far side were a few houses. We had been walking for a couple of hours now, and I wondered if Alice knew where we were.

"How much farther do you think it is?" I asked her, to find out.

"It's taking longer than I thought," she said, "but we should be getting close."

She stopped. She looked carefully in every direction. I looked, too, and then I watched Alice looking. I think that Alice will someday solve problems that have baffled humankind for centuries. But they are not going to be problems like: Where are we, where is the horse farm, and how do we get home without climbing any more hills?

"Let's head for those telephone poles," I said. "There's probably a road there."

We crossed the muddy field and caught a tiny glimpse of Birdvale High School. The telephone poles were planted alongside an unfamiliar country road. We walked in the direction of the school.

"Do you think the horses are between here and the school?" I asked Alice.

"No," said Alice thoughtfully.

"Let's eat the apples then," I said.

A little while later we walked past the empty parking lot of the empty high school into the streets of Birdvale. It felt exotic to be there on foot, with nothing but feet to get us home again. We had been to most of the stores, and some of the houses, in cars, and they were a lot like the stores and houses in Seldem. At the moment, though, they seemed somehow more interesting. We reached the block of stores where the bakery was, between the hardware store and the doll hospital.

"Do you have any money?" I asked Alice. We fished in our pockets for change. I had some; Alice didn't.

"I'll treat," I said, and we went inside the bakery. Fans hanging from the high old ceiling turned slowly, wafting heavenly smells all around. Paper cutouts of jack-o'-lanterns and autumn leaves were Scotch-taped to the walls. We looked at every tray before deciding. I chose a cream puff, and Alice selected a flaky apple turnover. It was turning into a day of great eating, and we walked along Pittsfield Street, silently savoring our personal pastry paradises while trucks and cars whizzed by. Alice had little flecks of apple turnover on her lips and chin.

"Do I have any crumbs on my face?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "Do I?"

"Just a couple," I said, and brushed them off.

Pittsfield Street was long, dirty, and noisy, but eventually it led us under the railroad trestle and into Seldem. We were running out of steam. The late-afternoon shadows were horizontal and blue. Alice told me about a book she was reading about snails. I could read a magazine article about snails, but not a whole book. Alice was telling me only the most interesting parts, though, like how some people eat them. I guess the pastry made her think of it. We got to my house and said good-bye.

I walked around to the back door since my shoes were covered with dried mud. I breathed in the chilly autumn air and felt the achiness of my muscles as they prepared to collapse. I felt something else, too. I felt happy. I felt good. Without Maureen.

"Hmm," I said aloud. The thought of Maureen threw a shadow over my heart. But I slipped out from under it. Not today, I thought Not right now.

The sun was about to set bathing the world in a golden light. Including my mother's face, looking through the window of the back door, golden and rosy. Golden and rosy and furious.

"Where on earth have you been," she said, opening the door.

It wasn't exactly a question, and I knew there wasn't exactly an answer, not one that would be good enough. "We got lost," I said. "We were lucky to find our way home."

ten.

THEN SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED.

It was a Tuesday evening. Mom and Dad had gone out somewhere, and Chrisanne and I were home by ourselves, watching TV. We had made ourselves big sundaes with chocolate and caramel syrup, walnuts and chocolate chips, and Cupcake was sitting up between us, waiting for his turn. Chrisanne finished first. She put her bowl down for Cupcake and went upstairs to take a bath. I was already in my PJs, with my hair rolled around orange juice cans on top of my head.

A minute later Chrisanne came hurrying back down the stairs. I looked up from my ice cream as she tripped on the bottom step and knocked over the pole lamp. Nothing broke, but Cupcake jumped up and ran barking out of the room.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

As she picked herself (and the lamp) up, she answered in an urgent whisper, "There's a man in our bathroom! We have to get out of the house!"

"Oh. Sure," I said. I sat back and took another bite of ice cream. Practically every time our parents go out, Chrisanne hears some noise and makes me check all the closets while she stands at the front door, ready to escape at my first scream.

"No!" she insisted. "There really is!" She glanced nervously up the stairs and squatted next to my chair with her face about ten inches from mine. She was making just enough sounds like t's and s's to make it a little easier than pure lipreading.

"I saw his coat and his shoes. He's standing behind the bathroom door. I turned on the light and tried to push the door all the way open, and it wouldn't go. Then I looked in the crack, and I could see the chest of his coat and his shoes. We have to get out of here. We have to go to Fran and Danny's and call the police!"

She disappeared into the kitchen, the storm door fell shut with a bang, and her blurred form flew by outside the dining room window.

The chest of someone's coat and shoes-this was more convincing. I quickly a.s.sessed the situation: I had to get Cupcake and myself out of the house, but I didn't know where he had gone. I wasn't about to walk past the bathroom door to look for him. I wanted to let the man in the bathroom know that everyone was leaving the house, but I also wanted him to think we didn't know he was there. So that if he had any sense at all, he would just wait a few minutes till we were gone. Then he could burgle our house in peace without kidnapping or shooting anyone.

"Cupcake!" I called out, loudly but calmly. "It's nine o'clock. Time for us to go over to Fran's house. We're all supposed to go over to Fran's house now. Chrisanne's already over there. Come on, Cupcake!"

Cupcake jingled back into the room. I picked him up and carried him, squirming and struggling, as I announced, "Here we go, Cupcake. Over to Fran and Danny's house. No one here now. Here we ail gol"

My footsteps were slow and even across the back porch, but when I hit the gra.s.s, I bolted. I was pretty sure the intruder couldn't see me from the bathroom window, especially in the dark.

Tesey and Chrisanne were waiting, and they pulled me, with Cupcake, into the kitchen and locked the door behind me. Fran was already on the phone, talking to the police. "Yes," she said. "In the bathroom, up on the second floor. One of the girls saw him.... Yes, both of them are here with me now. Next door." She paused, listening. "That's right. Thank you."

She hung up the phone, and then, suddenly, someone was jiggling the k.n.o.b of the kitchen door, trying to get it open. We all shrieked and flew together in a huddle. Fran positioned herself defiantly between us and the door, which was now being banged upon. Cupcake hid bravely behind her, barking and wagging his tail.