3.

At lunchtime, Amy pa.s.sed the cafeteria table where Jeanine was regaling her friends with more fantasies about her background.

"You know Roseanne from TV? She had a baby girl before she was married, and she put her up for adoption. A newspaper found the daughter and brought them together! Wouldn't it be wild if my mother turned out to be a TV star? Not Roseanne, of course. Maybe someone like Pamela Anderson Lee. Or Gillian Anderson."

As they ate lunch, Amy reported what she'd overheard to Tasha.

"Oh, right," Tasha said sarcastically. "Jeanine Bryant is the secret love child of Dana Scully and Fox Mulder." She rolled her eyes. "I can't believe Mrs. Bryant thought her precious daughter would be on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

"Mothers don't always know their daughters," Amy said, and realized she was thinking of her own. "Want to come over after school and help me clean the kitchen?"

"No thanks," Tasha said. "I've got a Parkside News meeting."

Amy was prepared to walk home alone after her last cla.s.s, so she was pleasantly surprised to find Eric standing by her locker, waiting for her.

"I thought you had basketball practice," she said.

"It was canceled. Let's go home and shoot baskets."

"I have to clean the kitchen first," Amy said as they left the building together. "You know, you were right about Jeanine, she - "

"Holy cow!" Eric interrupted. "Look at that!"

Just in front of the school entrance, a long black stretch limousine was slowly pa.s.sing. A window rolled down on the pa.s.senger side, and a boy Amy recognized as Mick Jones, one of Eric's cla.s.smates, stuck his head out.

"Hey, Morgan! Check it out! My brother's got a job as a limo driver. We're going to the mall, wanna come?"

Living in Los Angeles, near Hollywood and Beverly Hills, Amy was used to seeing limousines on the streets. But she'd never been inside one. So when Eric grabbed her hand and cried, "Let's go," she didn't resist.

The car was amazingly huge. Sitting in the backseat with Eric, Amy could see that there was room for six more people. The seats were soft and plush, the kind you could sink into, and there were two telephones, one on each side.

b.u.t.tons lined the inside, and Amy and Eric experimented to see what would happen when each one was pressed. One b.u.t.ton opened the windows - not a big deal. But when they pressed another b.u.t.ton, a television screen came down from the top of the car. Another b.u.t.ton made a panel slide open, revealing a stereo system with a selection of CDs to choose from. Another b.u.t.ton opened a cabinet and displayed a selection of bottles and gla.s.ses, and another turned out to be a mini-refrigerator. There were so many b.u.t.tons, they didn't have time to test all of them before they arrived at the mall.

"You can play again on the way back," Mick told them.

Mick's brother had to be at his next job in exactly one hour, so he was going to drive them home first. "I can't be late for work," he warned them. "If you're not here in forty minutes, I'm leaving without you. Mick and I are going to check out the hardware store."

Amy and Eric promised to meet them in forty minutes and took off.

"What do you want to do?" Eric asked as they entered the main court of the mall.

"I don't care, let's just walk around," Amy replied. She rarely went to the mall on weekdays, but it was nice to amble along and window-shop without being jostled and shoved by a million shoppers toting a zillion bags.

When hunger struck, they went to the food court, and after a brief debate as to whether they wanted Chinese or Italian food, they compromised on Mexican and settled down at a table with a couple of tacos.

It was then that Amy remembered what she'd been about to tell Eric as they left school. "You were right about Jeanine. She's just as awful as she always was. Now she thinks she must have been born the child of movie stars."

"Yeah, I think I saw her parents in a Star Wars movie," Eric said. "What were those pointy-headed creatures called again?"

Amy laughed and they took turns naming the various characters from the movies. They started giggling, getting sillier and sillier when they imagined Jeanine as the natural child of cosmic creatures. Then Amy realized that she was being stared at.

"OhmiG.o.d," she murmured.

"What?" Eric asked.

"That woman over there . . ." By now the woman was striding toward them with a smile.

"Why, h.e.l.lo there!" she said. "I thought you looked familiar. You're the girl who gave me directions yesterday!"

Amy nodded. "This woman was lost in our neighborhood yesterday afternoon," she explained to Eric. "She couldn't find the freeway."

"And this young lady gave me excellent directions," the woman said.

Amy was puzzled. "They couldn't have been that good. I saw you come back down our street just a little while later."

The woman hesitated and then gave a pretty, tinkling laugh. "Silly me, I'm bad at remembering directions - and at admitting it. I finally did make it home after asking two other people for help. By the way, my name is Camilla."

"I'm Amy. This is my friend Eric."

"Pleased to meet you," Camilla said to Eric, but her eyes were still on Amy. "This is quite a surprise, running into you here. With the hundreds of malls in Los Angeles, it's a real coincidence to find someone you recognize at one of them."

Amy agreed and wondered what Camilla was doing at this particular mall. She couldn't live in this area, or she wouldn't have been lost the day before. "It's nice to see you again," she said politely.

"Yes, same here." Camilla's eyes lingered for a moment on Amy's face, and then she flashed a sweet smile. "Maybe we'll run into each other again someday. Bye!"

"I guess that's what's called a real coincidence," Amy commented as she watched the woman cross the food court.

"Yeah."

Something about Eric's tone made her look at him. He was frowning.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. It's just . . . well, didn't you think it was kind of weird, the way she was looking at you?"

Amy shrugged. "She was probably just startled to see me again. I'm glad I recognized her. She drives a great car."

"Oh yeah? What's special about it?"

"It's a bright blue convertible. Totally cool." After a second Amy added, "It's funny, I'd never seen one before. And today I saw another one exactly like it."

"Where?"

"In the school parking lot."

"Maybe it was the same car," Eric commented. "Did you see anyone in it?"

Amy shook her head. "No. It had to belong to someone who works at Parkside. No one has any other reason to be there."

"Unless that someone is looking for you."

Amy was taken aback. "Why would she be looking for me?"

"I don't know," Eric said. "But a coincidence like that just doesn't make sense."

"Of course it doesn't make sense." Amy laughed. "That's why it's called a coincidence."

Eric didn't laugh. He leaned closer to her. "She could be one of them. You know. From the organization," he whispered.

Amy scowled. "Now you sound like my mother. I haven't been bothered by anyone from the organization in ages, not since, since - "

"Not since Wilderness Adventure," Eric reminded her. "And that wasn't so long ago."

Amy wanted to change the subject. "Eric, see those two girls over there?" she asked.

"Yeah, what about them?"

"The brown-haired one has a nice haircut."

"I guess," Eric said. "But I don't like the bangs."

"I like the rest of it, though," Amy commented. "I wonder how I would look with short hair? I've had the same long hair my whole life."

Eric didn't say anything.

"Eric? Are you listening to me? Do you think I should get my hair cut?"

Eric apparently wasn't concerned with her hair at the moment. "Amy," he said slowly, "what time is it?"

Amy looked at her watch. "Five to five. Why?"

"What time did we get here?"

Then Amy realized why he hadn't answered her question. With a gasp, she leaped up from her seat. Together they ran from the food court, through a store, across the mall's main court, and out into the parking lot.

"Oh no," Eric groaned, and he didn't have to say why he was upset. Amy too could see that the black stretch limo was gone. She echoed his groan.

"My mother's going to kill me if I'm not there when she gets home. Can you call your mother to come pick us up?"

"She's not home," Eric said glumly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. "You got any money for a cab?"

Amy looked. "Not enough."

Which meant that they had to rely on public transportation. And in Los Angeles that meant buses. They waited for one bus, and then waited some more to catch another. By the time they got off at the stop closest to their homes, forty-five minutes had pa.s.sed.

"It's only quarter of six," Eric said. "Not even dinnertime. We're fine."

"You're fine," Amy replied grimly. "I'm not so sure about me."

And she was right. Nancy Candler wasn't just annoyed - she was mad.

"Amy, you told me you were coming straight home from school! Where were you?"

Amy went on the defensive. "I went to the mall with Eric. I hardly have any homework, and we got a ride in a limousine. The brother of a friend of Eric's drives it for his job. What's the big deal?"

Her mother pointed wordlessly to the kitchen. Amy remembered the cereal and the dirty dishes.

"Oops! Sorry, I forgot."

"You forgot to make your bed, too," her mother pointed out.

"It's my bed," Amy said. "I shouldn't have to make it if I don't want to."

"Well, I want you to make it," Nancy declared. "We have rules in this house, and you know perfectly well what they are!"

"Okay, okay," Amy snapped. "I said I was sorry!" She stormed upstairs to her room and flung herself on the unmade bed.

It wasn't fair, it just wasn't fair. She knew she should have remembered about cleaning the kitchen and making her bed. But she knew the real reason her mother was upset. It was because Amy hadn't called to let her know where she was. That was the part that wasn't fair. Other kids didn't have to inform their parents about every move they made.

But other kids weren't clones. Other kids weren't in constant danger.

The organization hadn't sent anyone to abduct her in a long while, but she knew they were out there. Watching. Waiting. Wanting her - or someone just like her.

Back when her mother, Dr. Jaleski, and the other scientists had destroyed Project Crescent by blowing up the laboratory, they'd hoped the organization would think all the clones had died in the explosion. For twelve years Nancy Candler had been convinced that they'd succeeded in their deception.

But she had found out she was wrong. They knew - or at least they suspected - that the clones had survived. That they were out there somewhere - the twelve Amy clones with identical crescent moons on their right shoulder blades. Girls with superior abilities and memories and intelligence. Maybe some boys, too. And the organization hadn't given up its goal to create a master race to take over the world.

That was why her mother worried about where Amy was at all times. That was why Nancy wouldn't let her get a haircut. Or a manicure, either. DNA could be identified through hair samples and fingernail clippings. Nancy didn't want anyone to have the chance to confirm what Amy was.

Amy tried not to think about it all too much. It was a secret she needed to keep for her safety - for her very survival, although she had confided in Tasha and Eric. They knew the truth about her, but she trusted them, and she was grateful that most of the time they forgot she was a clone.

She just wished her mother would forget too.

4.

Eric had early-morning basketball practice the next day to make up for the cancellation the afternoon before, so Amy and Tasha walked to school without him. This was good, since Tasha only wanted to talk about pierced ears. She debated the pros and cons of tiny silver loops versus little gold b.a.l.l.s.