"But you don't understand," I blurted out. "It was all my fault."

"No, it wasn't," Mrs. Fisher said gently. She reached out and took my hand, which should have been weird, but was actually sort of nice. "Amelia told us what happened. She used very bad judgment. And you had no idea what she was going to do, or what would happen as a result. We're just glad that you were there with this young man." Mr. Fisher smiled warmly at Dex. "And that you were there to ride to the hospital with her. She told us what a comfort that was for her."

"She did?" I said.

"She did," Mrs. Fisher confirmed. She smiled at me, although tears still glittered in her eyes. Mrs. Fisher squeezed my hand and released it. "What happened today was my fault, Miranda, not yours. If I'd been watching her more carefully, she would never have been able to sneak out of the house."

"Amelia is pretty crafty," I said fairly.

"I know she is," Mrs. Fisher said with a faint laugh. "She's too smart for her own good."

"I know what that's like," my dad remarked.

Mrs. Fisher wasn't done, though. She took in a deep breath, let it out, and said, "I owe you an apology, Miranda. I should never have fired you. I've just been so caught up in the idea of Amelia having this great talent . . . I somehow let it take over everything else."

"It's okay," I said quietly.

"No, it's not okay," Mrs. Fisher said. "I'm not letting myself off the hook that easily."

Mr. Fisher put an arm around his wife's shoulders again. "We need to spend some time together as a family, I think."

"Speaking of which, we should be going," Dad said. He smiled at me. "The Fishers probably want to go back in to be with Amelia."

"Right," I said. I hesitated. "I don't suppose I could see Amelia, could I?"

"She's sleeping right now," Mrs. Fisher said apologetically. "That's why we were able to step away for a moment."

"I understand. But could you tell her hi from me?" I asked.

"Of course," Mr. Fisher said.

My dad waited for me in his car while I said good-bye to Dex.

"Do you mind getting a ride home with your dad?" Dex asked. "I have to get back to the pool. Jessie covered my shift, so I have to go take hers. If I leave now, I might just be able to make it."

"Absolutely," I said. I smiled up at him. "Thanks for waiting with me. I didn't realize you were missing work."

"No problem. Jessie didn't mind," Dex said, taking my hand. He hesitated. "So, we're good, right?"

"We're good," I said. I let out a small laugh and looked at the ground. "And I was so sure you were going to break up with me today."

"I thought you were going to break up with me," Dex said.

"I'm glad we were both wrong," I said.

"Me, too," Dex said. He rested one hand lightly on the back of my neck, and the other on my waist, and drew me toward him, resting his forehead against mine, so that our eyes were only inches apart. I could make out every feathery fine point on his eyelashes. Suddenly Dex drew back, looking wary. "Wait-where's your dad?"

"He's in his car back over there," I said, gesturing behind me.

"Can he see us?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Good. Because I don't want him to see me do this," Dex said, leaning forward to kiss me.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

Charlie came over that evening. I was feeling so wrung out that I was already in bed when she arrived, even though it was only seven o'clock. I leaned back against a pile of pillows with the snowy white duvet draped over my lap. Charlie camped out at the foot of the bed. She'd brought a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels as a treat, and we took turns reaching into the blue foil bag for the candy.

After I finished telling Charlie about Amelia nearly drowning, I filled her in on everything that had been going on with me and Dex-his leaving for school, my fears that he was breaking up with me, that for one wild moment I'd considered asking him to stay, but instead encouraged him to go. Then, even though I felt like I'd been talking for hours at that point, I went on to tell her that Sadie had asked me to move to London. I wanted to get it all out at once, and not hold back any secrets.

"Wow," Charlie said, her eyes wide. She shook her head. "How did I not know any of this was going on?"

"You've had a lot on your mind lately," I said. "And I didn't say anything."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Charlie frowned at me. "Why didn't you tell me you were considering moving out of the country? That's not exactly a small thing."

"I'm sorry. I should have. I guess I wanted to figure out what I was going to do first," I said.

"And what are you going to do?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea," I said. "Right now I'm so tired, I just want to curl up and sleep for a hundred years."

Charlie shook her head and popped a pretzel in her mouth. She looked thoughtful as she chewed and swallowed it.

"Isn't it easier to make up your mind now that Dex isn't going to be here?" she asked. "He would have been one of the reasons you stayed, after all."

"That's the weird thing. Even though I've tried really hard not to let him affect my decision-I want to go or not go because it's what's best for me-I know he has been a factor. A big one. But once I found out he was going away, it didn't seem to change how I felt about London. I'm just as unsure about it as ever," I said. "Don't you think that's strange?"

"Nah," Charlie said, reaching for another pretzel. "You've been talking about writing for The Ampersand for years, ever since we were at Geek Middle. Now that you've finally got your spot, I'm sure it would be hard to give it up. And then, of course, there's me." She patted her chest modestly. "Your best friend in the whole world. You'd be heartbroken to have to leave me."

I grinned at her. "That's true."

"And I seriously don't think I could survive another two years at Geek High without you," Charlie said. She shuddered. "What a hideous thought."

"You'd still have Finn," I reminded her.

"Right," Charlie snorted. Her eyes flashed.

"Uh-oh. What happened?" I asked.

"Are you sure you want to hear this?" Charlie asked. "I'd understand if you weren't up to listening to me moan about my pathetic love life right now."

Tired of dwelling on my own crisis, I jumped at the chance for a distraction. "No, tell me. What happened?"

Charlie held up one hand, touching her thumb and index together to form a zero. "A big, fat nothing is what happened," she said. "The brilliant plan that couldn't fail? Well, it failed."

"Finn wasn't overcome with jealousy?" I asked sympathetically.

"Oh, he was. Just not for me," Charlie said gloomily. "It turns out that Phoebe knows all about Hannah's trick. After she left the bowling alley the other night, she apparently called her ex-boyfriend for a ride home and then went out for a coffee with him the next day. At Grounded. When she knew Finn was going to be there."

"That's so obvious," I said, my estimation of Phoebe going down a few notches.

"I know, right? But apparently it worked. Finn flipped out, and he and Phoebe had a big talk, and now they're back together. Thus proving that Finn is as big an idiot as I've always said he is," Charlie said contemptuously.

"I thought you were in love with him," I said.

"I am. But that's in spite of his idiocy," Charlie said, not noticing that she'd just finally admitted that she was in love with Finn. "And meanwhile, Luke won't stop calling me. I finally gave in, and agreed to go to the movies with him tomorrow night."

"Is that good or bad?" I asked.

"It's terrible! I don't like Luke in that way. Which means, of course, he'll probably fall madly in love with me, because that's what guys always do-they go for the wrong girl," Charlie said. "It's practically a given."

"Not always," I said, thinking of Dex and the kiss we'd shared earlier that day. The memory caused a whoosh of happiness tinged with sadness to spread through me. It wasn't the last time I'd see Dex-we still had weeks together before he left for school. But it felt like the beginning of a good-bye. I wondered if that was what it would be like from now on-if every moment we spent together, every kiss we shared would be bittersweet. I sighed and hugged my pillow to my chest.

Charlie just rolled her eyes. "It's probably a good thing Dex is going away to school. At least you won't be so nauseatingly happy anymore."

"Hey!" I said. I whacked her with my pillow.

Charlie just ducked and giggled. "It's true! When I'm feeling bitter, I need to have bitter people around me."

"I'm not bitter. I'm sad," I said.

"I'll take what I can get," Charlie said. "Hey! Stop hitting me!"

I put the pillow down and leaned back again. "You never know. Finn might surprise you."

"I don't think so," Charlie said, shaking her head sadly. "If he really had feelings for me, he wouldn't have run back to Phoebe."

"But Finn still doesn't know how you feel about him. He thinks you see him as just another friend. If you told him how you felt-"

"Absolutely not," Charlie said, cutting me off. She flopped on her back. "I would just be setting myself up for complete and utter humiliation."

There was a knock on the door, and then Hannah opened the door a few inches wide. "Hey," she said. "How did your driving test go?"

"I pa.s.sed," I said.

"You did!" Charlie sat bolt upright. "You didn't tell me that!"

"I sort of forgot in all of the excitement," I said. "Why are you out in the hallway, Hannah? Come on in. Charlie brought chocolate-covered pretzels. Although I know you probably won't eat them, will you?" I rolled my eyes at Charlie. "Hannah thinks she's fat."

"That's crazy talk," Charlie said.

The door opened an inch wider, but Hannah still didn't come in. I could barely see her, hovering out there.

"Something sort of happened at the photo shoot today," she said.

"How did it go?" I asked. Then, seeing Charlie's confusion, I explained, "Hannah was hired to model for an ad campaign for UFO Computers. It's actually a really big deal that she was picked," I added, feeling an unexpected rush of pride for my stepsister.

"Very cool," Charlie said, clearly impressed.

"No, it was not cool," Hannah said. She finally opened the door all the way and stepped through.

The first thing I noticed was her hair. It was silver. And not its usual pale, silvery blond. It was now a metallic silver, complete with sparkles. And there was something odd about her face, too, although I couldn't quite figure out what it was. She was clearly distressed. Her eyes glittered with tears, and her mouth was a tight, pinched line.

"Cool hair," Charlie said appreciatively.

"It's not cool. It's horrible!" Hannah said. Her voice broke on the word horrible.

"I like it. How long will the sparkles stay in it?" Charlie asked.

"Probably forever." Hannah wrapped her arms around herself. "They said it could take twenty to twenty- five hair washes for it to all come out."

"That's not forever. If you wash your hair every day, it will be back to normal in a little under a month," I said encouragingly.

"A month! I'm not going to walk around with freak hair for a month!"

"You won't have to," Charlie said. Charlie had been dyeing her hair since the age of eleven and, as a result, was quite knowledgeable on hair color. "There's a shampoo that will take all of the color out in a wash or two. You can buy it at the beauty-supply store. You have to be careful, though-it's strong, and it can strip a lot of the moisture out of your hair. Make sure you condition well afterwards."

"Really?" Hannah looked slightly mollified. She crossed my room and collapsed on the hard white chair in the corner. She still looked to be on the verge of tears. Her face was pale-although that could just have been the heavy makeup she was still wearing-and her brow was furrowed. . . .

"Hannah!" I exclaimed, suddenly realizing what it was that was so different about her. "What happened to your eyebrows?"

Hannah looked up, her face crumpled with misery. "They waxed them off," she said. And then she burst into tears.

It took Charlie and me a few minutes to calm Hannah down. Charlie tried to force-feed Hannah pretzels while I fetched her a gla.s.s of ice water from the kitchen. When she'd finally recovered her composure, she told us what happened.

"I was supposed to be dressed up as an alien for the photo shoot. They had me wear this really weird silver dress that had all sorts of hoops around the arms and waist. And they did this to my hair." Hannah pointed to her head. "And then the makeup lady said she was going to wax my eyebrows. I thought she was just going to shape them up a bit, the way they do at the salon. But suddenly she just ripped them all off."

Charlie and I both cringed. Ouch.

"They said it would make me look more alien-like. But now I just look like a big freak!" Hannah continued.

"No, you don't," I said soothingly.

But I had to admit, it did look pretty weird. Hannah's forehead was completely bald, every last trace of eyebrow gone.

"Can they do that?" Charlie asked curiously. "Can they wax off your entire eyebrows without getting permission first?"

"I don't know if they are supposed to, but they did. My mom freaked out when she saw. She started threatening to sue everyone. The photographer, the makeup artist, the computer store. So then they freaked out and fired me on the spot. It was awful. You cannot even imagine what a terrible day I had," Hannah said.