"So you were friends for years and years?"

"Our whole lives. Or, maybe it makes more sense to say, for your dad's whole life."

"Did you fight, ever?"

"Sure."

I was quiet. Leonard said, "Think Franklin'll be coming by the store with you soon?"

"No," I said, in a tiny voice.

Leonard took a turn being quiet. Then he said, "A good friend is one of the hardest things to keep in this life. Don't forget that sometimes you have to work at it."

But I had forgotten, before I'd even learned.

"I don't feel different," I said finally. "I thought I would feel different. You said you always felt different after you went to the lake. I thought it would help, to do something that worked for Dad."

"Just going to the old lake doesn't fix anything, you know. It's how you change at the lake. You go away, think about things, and you come back a little bit different. Only you can change what you are."

That sounded like things Uncle Hugh had been saying and Dad had written.

I let Leonard's last sentence repeat in my head. I let it whir and whirl. I let the wind swirl it around and around me and then carry it away. It carried it out across the smooth water of the lake, making ripples that were not smooth, but became smoothed out again.

"Do you like what I am?"

"What?"

"Do you like what I am?"

"I always love our Cricket, whatever she is." He paused. "The better question is, do you like what you are?"

I waited, then said, "I don't."

"I want to hear the whole thing, from the beginning, up to how we got here right now. Start talking, Cricket."

Something to Believe In.

On Sunday morning, I found another key.

This one was on my dresser next to some clean socks Aunt Bessie had dropped off. Was it from her? I doubted it, for some reason. It could have been there for days.

After this one there would be just one more key. And maybe then I would learn who the mysterious key-giver was. Who would send a key from California? The person who left all the rest of the keys had to be someone who could get in the housea"or somebody already in it. Unless the keys were coming from Somewhere Else a through a time warp or by angel messenger or a I pushed those thoughts out of my mind to deal with later and headed outside.

This room looked like the library, except smaller, without the desk.

Why would Dad give me another room full of books? But the room had books from floor to ceiling anyway, with the exception of a mirror sitting on one of the shelves. I scanned some of the t.i.tles. Taoism. Native American Myths. The Historical Jesus. Nothing interesting. I pulled one off the shelf. It looked like hard reading.

The message on the floor said, BELIEVE.

The books were all things to believe in.

The mirror was kind of a weird addition. I stared at my reflection.

And suddenly, that made sense, too.

I was also supposed to believe in myself.

At lunch, Franklin walked by our table, looking for a place to sit. Caroline waved at him. He waved back but kept going.

Caroline turned to me. "What are you working on?" She looked at the loose-leaf paper and mechanical pencil I was hiding under the table.

"The poetry a.s.signment," I said. Our usual paragraph a.s.signment had turned into poems for the rest of the unit. "I'm really sick of writing poems. I just don't get what they should be about."

"What have your other ones been about?" Caroline asked.

"Dumb things. Springtime. Winter."

"Do you really care about winter?"

I shook my head.

Caroline looked over a few tables, where Franklin was eating a sandwich (probably bologna with yellow mustard) and talking with Diana, who was in an orange sweatshirt with a black cat on it, looking like Halloween.

Then Caroline started reading, letting me do my homework. I liked having her just sit next to me while the thoughts whirred in my head.

I decided to finish my homework at home and started to eat. My peanut b.u.t.ter sandwich that was not flattened or smooshed or crushed or hurt in any way. It still stuck to the roof of my mouth and in my throat just as much.

I looked around for Amanda. She was several tables away, laughing with Kate and Lindsay and a couple boys.

"What's Amanda's deal, anyway?" I asked.

"I don't know," Caroline said. "She wasn't always like this."

"I saw her with her brother once. He and his friends weren't that nice to her."

"No, they aren't."

"But just because someone is mean to her doesn't give her the right to be mean to other people."

Then a funny feeling squirmed inside me. Like I was to Franklin?

The truth was, it wasn't just the not-fessing-up in the princ.i.p.al's office that was wrong between me and Franklin. I hadn't been nice to him all year. I called him names. I didn't like to do things with him the way I had before because I was worried about what other people would think. He embarra.s.sed me, even though I should have been happy to have such a good friend. I really hadn't been a good friend to him for a long, long time.

a a a I took a deep breath and dialed.

Mrs. White answered. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Hi. Is Franklin there?"

"Oh, hi, Elise. Let me go see if I can find him."

I waited. She would know exactly where he was; she meant "Let me see if he wants to talk to you."

"I'm sorry," she said. "He's doing homework right now and doesn't want to be interrupted. Maybe try him tomorrow?"

"Uh, okay, thanks," I managed to say. "Bye."

"Oh, and Elise?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for calling."

I hung up.

A Lifetime Supply of Questions.

When Mrs. Wakefield said it was time to have someone share her poem, I expected her to call on Caroline. She called on her almost every week.

"Elise, come up and share with us."

I was so surprised I stayed in my seat staring at her until Caroline poked me in the back.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to read my poem in front of everyone, but I stood up and took my paper from Mrs. Wakefield. It shook a little in my hands. I cleared my throat.

Hiding The real me is hiding.

I thought that you were my disguise.

I thought that you blocked people's eyes.

Now you are gone, but I'm the same, On my own, trapped in a game.

I do not like the me I see.

I wish that you were still with me.

Why did the real me go to hide?

Can I find her still inside?

The real me is hiding.

"Great job, Elise," said Mrs. Wakefield.

"I don't get it," said a boy named Greg.

"Elise, why don't you tell us a little bit about your poem?"

I thought. "I guess it's about things being different than they seem. And about a losing track."

"I think this poem is very interesting because it includes so many elements," Mrs. Wakefield said. "There's loss, self-reflection. Those are just a couple of them. Great work, Elise."

I sat down and glanced at Franklin. He didn't look up from the rocket ship he was designing on his gridded notebook page. I wondered if he'd even listened.

I read Mrs. Wakefield's comment on the paper: I hope you share more of your great thoughts with me!

Caroline beamed at me. Then she flicked a small piece of paper from the top of her desk to mine. I opened it.

It said, See?

I smiled back.

a a a Uncle Hugh and Aunt Bessie were happy when I showed them what Mrs. Wakefield had written. And that night it was easier to sit down and do my homework. I kept my math paper smooth and nice, and did all my graphing in sharp colored pencil. When I got it back two days later, there was a big check plus on it.

And when we had to recite a poem for Mrs. Wakefield, I practiced and practiced and remembered every single word.

Then a really good thing happened and that was that I studied enough for the next science test to get a ninety-five.

After that, my work didn't scare me anymore. I just did it, and things started to go well more often.

And then one day I came home to the library, and on my desk was the last key.

This room was probably the strangest of all, besides the room that had had nothing in it, of course.

There were no books or pictures, no journals or sc.r.a.pbooks. There was a message. It said QUESTION.

A million pieces of paper with what looked like single sentences written on them were taped all over the walls.

I looked closer. They were all questions.

Some questions had quotations and a name underneath, and some were on their own, as if anyone could have asked them.

"Where did I leave my keys?"

a"John "Where are Elise's shoes?"