"What?" Ginger says, when she sees me spying on her.

"Nothing." I laugh.

"Well, then leave us alone. Go bother Nina."

"Guess what I did today," I say.

"I don't care what you did."

"O-kay-ay," I sing. "If you don't want to know what I did at Ma-ri-a's ..."

Ginger smacks her foot back down on the floor, making the china in the hutch tremble. "I don't care what you did. I don't know why you hang around with that freak. I don't know why Mom lets you."

"She's my friend."

"You don't have friends."

"Neither do you!" I shout.

"Who do you think this is?" She points at Cheryl. "LEAVE US ALONE. GO BOTHER NINA!"

I feel my cheeks get hot. Cheryl is staring at me. They both are, waiting for me to turn around and leave so they can talk about me. Cheryl copies my sister by putting her hands on her hips. I hate Cheryl, too.

"Mom says you have fat thighs, FAT-SO!" I shout. Then I walk past them and down the hall as fast as I can. I slam my bedroom door shut and belly flop onto my bed.

I hate Ginger! I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!

I take the Game Boy out of my skirt pocket and continue where I left off, in one of the castle's corridors, just about to use a clock and create a fire-whipping spell that would bring those vile dragon zombies to my mercy. I hate those evil dragon zombies!

Five minutes later, there's a knock on my door. "Sadie?" Mom comes in. "I'm taking Ginger, Nina, and their friends to the beach. Do you want to come, sweetie? Put on your suit. We'll take a quick swim."

"I don't know," I say, collecting an action card. "My foot is kind of hurting me."

"Well, the cold water might do it some good." I peek up at her. She's already wearing her swimsuit. The purple one with the skirt-the one that has mega-huge silver-and-gold flowers on the waist.

"Hurry up, Sadie," Ginger says, poking her head in. "I don't have all day. I have to go babysit later." She's wearing a pair of sungla.s.ses, really tiny ones, with pink tinted gla.s.s that barely covers her eyeb.a.l.l.s. And she has her ballet-slipper beach towel draped over her arms.

The snack key is gone from around her neck.

I look at her and Mom, and then at Cheryl, who's standing in the hallway, in a teeny yellow bikini, and I say, "I think I just want to stay home and put my foot up."

"Oh, honey, are you sure?" Mom asks. "We won't have as much fun without you. Will we, girls?"

Ginger gives Cheryl the "okay-sure" sign with her fingers.

"Yup. I'm sure," I say.

"Come on, Mom," Ginger says. "Let her stay."

"Okay," Mom says finally. "We'll only be an hour or so. I want to get back for aerobics, and I have to drop Ginger off at the Pickerels'. Then we're going to weigh in. Daddy won't be home from work until after eight, so we'll probably have a late, light dinner. Okay, sweetie-dee. Don't forget."

"Okay," I moan. I'm old enough to stay home by myself. I'm not a baby.

She leans forward. "Oh, and if you want something to eat, there's more carrots in the fridge." She pauses, and her eyes get wide and pointed, like this is charades and she's a giant human purple-painted exclamation point. I know she's not just talking carrots. I know she's afraid I'll cheat.

"Yup." Just go! I hate all of you!

"Okay, so call me on the cell phone if you need me. We're just going down to Forest River." She closes the door and I wait to hear them leave. To hear them pack up (I'm sure) a carrot-less cooler of treats. To herd down the stairs and then run back up because Nina forgot to grab the sunblock. And then finally to close and lock up the front door. That's my cue. I save my place in Castlevania, hop off my bed, peer out the window, and watch them get in the car. Nina and Douglas in the back. Mom, Ginger, and Cheryl in the front.

Me, at home, alone. Free.

The car backs out of the driveway and turns down the street. I head into the kitchen. I open up the freezer, and a puffy cloud of freezer air hits my face. It feels good. I look around for the box of Nutty Buddies, but there's just packages of frozen stuff-boxes of green beans and orange squash, a stack of hamburger patties with the paper in between, and lots of Reynolds Wrapped stuff.

No ice cream.

I look harder. They must be in here somewhere. Maybe Mom hid them. Maybe they're stuffed way in the back. Maybe I should empty out the freezer.

I move the step stool over and start filling my arms with frozen stuff. Then I stack it all up on the table. Some of this stuff is really heavy. Mom's stocked up on a trillion packages of frozen chicken and about a kazillion turkey pies. I think I see a container of something chocolate in the back. I move the broccoli spears and the square blocks of frozen pea pods to get at it, take it out, but see that it's a container of liver. I pry the cover off to be sure. Touch the icy pieces. Brown and b.l.o.o.d.y and frozen, like the remains of one of Dracula's victims after an ice blizzard. So gross!

There's a ball of aluminum foil in the back. It has a tiny wedge of brown sticking out from its Reynolds Wrap. I take the piece out. Ice dots the side, but it looks like chocolate for sure. I unravel it and see that it's cake. Mom and Dad's wedding cake. I remember Dad showing it to me right before their anniversary a couple years ago. It's one of the rose pieces. A white rose, made with b.u.t.ter cream.

I look back in the freezer. It's practically empty. No Nutty Buddies. No nothing.

I might as well eat the cake.

I lick the rose part first. It's so cold; it barely has any flavor. The sides of the cake are frozen with ice crystals, and you can't exactly suck cake like a Popsicle. I decide to put it in the microwave.

I stand right in front until the beep, take it out with my fingers, and then plop it onto a napkin. It's steaming. There are curls of smoke that rise from the frosting. I break off a piece of the rose part, a mouthful of chocolate cake underneath, and finger it into my mouth. At first it's so hot I can barely taste anything. But then it kind of melts over my tongue, and all I taste is ... freezer, like I've filled my mouth with old and yucky frost.

It's too gross to even swallow, even with the sugary rose, so I spit it out in one marbleized ball, put what's left back in the aluminum foil wrapping, and stuff it way back in the freezer. There's no way Mom and Dad would have eaten that anyway.

I cram the frozen stuff back into the freezer as best I can. At first, I try to put it all back the way I took it out, but everything starts to look the same, just a bunch of giant tinfoil b.a.l.l.s mixed with white and green boxes. Mom probably won't even be able to tell the difference. I go to shut the freezer door, but it won't close. There's too much stuff jammed in. I rearrange one tinfoil blob with another, shift the squash with the frozen asparagus box. Still no luck. There's one giant tinfoil brick, a frozen meat loaf, I think, that keeps me from shutting the door.

I push it in, hard, jam my shoulder against it, hold it in place, and whip the door closed before it can fall out. Yes!

I check the clock. It's 4:05. Mom and them have been gone for about a half hour. I should have at least another hour before they come home. I ballet-toe down the hallway into Ginger's room, reminding myself how she wasn't wearing the snack key when she left. I expect to have to search through all her stuff-between the mattress, under her pillow, taped behind the headboard. But it's right there, lying on the dresser, in her ballerina tutu-shaped jewelry dish. Ginger's so dumb, even dumber than Dracula's ghouls leaving all those rings and magical potions lying around the castle.

I take it and head downstairs-to the place where my treasure lies. The snack cabinet and fridge.

The snack quarters are way in the back, beyond the washroom and Dad's office. I ballet-toe through both. I can do ballet way better than Ginger. Mom tried to get me into Dance-tastic once, that's the good group, but my achilles tendon started acting up during tryouts, so I didn't make it. Dance-tastic's the group Ginger's in, but I think she only made it because Mom helps out at all the recitals and helps make the costumes and stuff. Plus, Ginger didn't even get a callback at the auditions for the Nutcracker in Boston last year. Everybody who's at least a little good gets a callback.

I make it on tiptoes all the way into the snack room. And just being in here, when I'm not supposed to be, and no one's home, and it's so quiet, just me and the hum of the fridge, makes me feel like I'm in one of the dark hallways of Castlevania, and at any minute one of Dracula's blood-feasting ghouls, or maybe even Dracula himself, if he dares, is going to jump out at me. I love it!

No question, I go for the fridge first. It's one of those double ones with the doors that open up from the middle. There's a hingelike metal thing on the doors, with a padlock. I insert the magic key and it comes undone pretty easily. I open up the freezer part, and there, lying atop the ice-cream sundae bars, are the Nutty Buddies.

The Nutty Buddies!

My treasure for being such a good player. I grab the box, and I'm so excited and my fingers are all tingly I can barely get them to work right. There are two ice creams left. Just like I thought. Six to a box and four already eaten.

But Mom would definitely notice if I took one.

Or ... maybe she might think that it was Ginger who ate it. Or Nina. Nina sometimes uses Ginger's key. Maybe Nina got another one for Douglas. Douglas is a growing boy, as Mom sometimes says. Or maybe Ginger could have given the key to Cheryl to get another. Even Dad likes to have an ice cream once in a while in the summer.

I take one out, look down at it, feel the soft cone beneath my fingers. I'll just say I don't know who ate it.

I tear off the paper that covers the ice cream part and mash my lips against the nutty topping. The sh.e.l.l-like fudge is cold against my teeth, but I'm able to bite a big piece of it off, so big that it fills my mouth wide and sticks out a little. I press the chocolate into my tongue with the roof of my mouth, breaking it up, slurping the piece before it changes into syrup, and I swallow it up.

I take another bite. The vanilla ice cream swirls inside my mouth. I play with it at the tip of my tongue, press my lips together, feel it against the roof. So cold. I swallow it down fast. The bloodthirsty ghouls will probably be home soon.

The cone part is just the way I like it. Soft and chewy. I have to pull at it with my teeth, but then I get a little piece of the paper wrapping in my mouth. I try to chew it free, but I can't quite do it unless I want to spit everything out. I swallow it all down instead, rip the rest of the paper off, and then bite across the whole cone so that the ice cream leaks out the sides and I have to lick it up quick. Then I put my mouth over the entire top and suck. And one giant ice-cream ball shoots into my mouth and lands at the back of my tongue. So good. Better than anything.

I poke the cone's point into my mouth and chew down on it, eyeing the last Nutty Buddy in the box. I grab it, tear the paper from the top, and start all over again.

When the Nutty Buddies are gone, I take a breath and see that I'm still standing in front of the open freezer, the cold air blowing in my face. All of a sudden, I don't feel so good. Not sick, but there's a weird tightness in my chest when I breathe. I can't think and I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should lock the fridge back up and go upstairs. If I should risk all my Weight Buster points and have some ice-cream sandwiches. Or just take a peek in the snack cabinet.

I decide on the cabinet since I don't really want any more ice cream anyway. I can bring the snack treasures I find up to my room and hide them before everyone comes home.

I move toward it, hold the key out, but my fingers are shaking. They're hovering around the lock the way the night moths do at the spotlight in front of our house. Maybe I shouldn't do it. Maybe I should just go back upstairs. I feel my face scrunch up, my chest get tighter. Mom and her vampire clan will probably be home any minute now. There probably isn't time.

But I have to. Today I have the key. Tomorrow Ginger will hide it in the fortress, someplace good. Someplace I won't be able to find it. She was in a rush today, to go to the beach; tomorrow she won't be.

It takes my jittery fingers a couple times to get the key into the lock. But then they do, and I turn the key, and the lock comes undone, and for some reason my chest relaxes and I'm able to breathe again.

Just like the fridge, the cabinet doors swing open from the middle. I grab the handles and pull wide, arms outspread like a mighty, immortal bird. The shelves are full of treasures. Anything I want. Twinkies, barbecue chips, Fudge Stripes. An eight-pack of snack-size Dorito bags, a fresh can of Sour Cream & Onion Pringles, peanut b.u.t.ter-filled pretzels.

I seize the Twinkie box and hold it under an arm, giggle at the thought of seize, one of my English vocab words. Luckily it's already been opened. There are six Twinkies left. I take three of them so that the box looks sort of full. Then I seize the long sleeve of Doritos and take out two bags, still leaving a few up the sleeve. I giggle at my lame little joke. I'm dying to take a stack of the Pringles, but since the can isn't open, it'd be way too risky. I tell this to myself, and yet I can't seem to move, like maybe there's a chance. Maybe Mom will just think someone else opened it.

I think about tearing the silver seal off just enough and then gluing it back on when I'm done. I'm sure Dad has a glue stick in his desk. Or maybe Mom might just think the can was opened by someone in the grocery store. We've both seen the trails of hungry shoppers leaving empty cookie and chip packages between two-liter bottles of c.o.ke. I'll take just a small stack. It'll be perfect. No one will notice.

I take the can out, and my hands are too full. I need to put my stuff down. Maybe on the bottom step of the staircase. I make my way toward it, my arms full of all my delectable treats, and then I hear something. At the front door. Through the tiny square windows at the top, I can see the screen door swing open.

They're home!

My heart squeezes so tight I can barely breathe. I can't even move. My throat feels like it's closing up, filling with Nutty Buddy ice cream.

"Sadie!" Nina shouts, throwing the front door open, then closed. She looks at the snacks in my hands and then turns back around to lock the door. "RUN! Upstairs. Now! They're coming!"

I run upstairs as fast as I can, crushing my snack treasures into my chest, feeling like some wicked vampire with long yellowy nails and teeth is going to plant those nails right into my back and then suck the blood right out of me if I don't go quick enough.

I make it into my room, kick the door shut, stash the treasures under my bed, and then hide in my closet, in the back, under my nest of h.e.l.lo Kitty winter covers, my protective cloak of armor. I pull at my eyelash hairs one by one, until I'm able to catch my breath.

Maybe my ally Nina will be able to clean up the snack room before anyone else sees it. Maybe Mom and her evil a.s.sistant Ginger are having one of their heart-to-hearts outside, and that's why Nina came in first. They still have to unpack the car, and that takes time. With each thought I feel a little better. My heart is able to unclench. But then my bedroom door is thrown open, the heavy wood slamming against the wall, probably making another mark.

"SADIE!" Mom yells.

I scrunch up ball-tight under the armor and make sure my head is covered completely. I hear my treasures, the bags of Doritos, being thrown across my room, that familiar crinkle sound.

"Sadie!" she yells again. I can tell she's right outside the closet door now. "I know you're in there. Come out NOW! Or I'll make you come out."

I don't do anything. I can't. My chest is going in and out so fast it's hard to breathe.

"Fine!" She slides the door open so that it slams into the pocket like one of Dad's eight b.a.l.l.s. She grabs my arm, covered in armor. "Take your thumb out of your mouth. You're not a baby anymore."

I think I'm going to faint, but then I cry out-one long, loud wail.

She pulls me to my feet. I hold the armor to my face for as long as I can before she tugs it away. But still I don't look at her. I'm just crying and my foot starts hurting. She pulled too hard.

"You are grounded!" she shouts. I can hear the clench of her venomous teeth. "No playing with friends. No going to the park. No TV. No snacks."

"NO!" I cry back.

"I want you to go into the kitchen NOW and put the freezer back the way you found it. Did you eat anything?"

"No!"

"Are you lying to me?"

"No!"

"If you're lying to me, I'll know. Everyone will know tonight when you go weigh in. They're going to be so disappointed in you."

I feel sick. I feel like I can't breathe, like there's gla.s.s stuck in my chest, like all the doors are slamming in my head. And my ankle and foot are aching, all the way up my leg. "I don't feel good," I say. "My achilles tendon hurts." I bend my leg to get the weight off it.

"Too bad."

"No," I cry. "You hurt it."

Mom grabs me by the arm and pinches my skin. "Pick up the junk food. NOW!" she shouts.

I do, but it's hard to fit it all in my arms. I keep dropping bags of Doritos. There's a Twinkie behind the door. Mom doesn't see it and I don't point it out.

She drags me down the hallway, past Hideous Ginger and her point-taking clone, Cheryl, and into the kitchen.

"Thanks for stealing my key, thief," Ginger says. She opens the Pringles, takes out a three-stack, inserts them into her smiley mouth, and chews and chews and chews. "Yummy, yummy. Want one, Cheryl?" Ginger holds the container out to Cheryl, but Cheryl just looks at me and shakes her head.

I hate Ginger so much. So much I want to just rip her eyes out and feed them to one of Dracula's pet rats.

The kitchen's too bright. The light stings my eyes. I try to keep them shut, but Mom grabs my face and makes me look. The freezer door is open: a bunch of frozen stuff is lying on the ground. It must have toppled out.

She pulls me by the arm over to the sink and makes me open up all the Twinkies and Doritos. I stand on the step stool and collect it all into a nice little mound, the Twinkies at the bottom, across the hole so they don't fall in, the Doritos on the top and sides like a sandcastle.

"Now turn the faucet on."

I choose the hot water and watch it drill down into my snacks, making them fall apart and plop into the hole. Mom turns on the garbage disposal and it eats everything up, even lets out a burp in the end.

"Not so appetizing now, is it?" she says.

I shake my head, and the steam from the burp rises up through the hole to kiss my face. What a waste!