Chloe, Dabney, and I would not be good criminals. For one, the champagne had made us giggly. For two, we hadn’t worked through the details of how we’d actually carry out our breaking-and-entering mission. I’d had, like, six sips of champagne and was breaking into a house. I was a full-on rebel now. It had only taken one night to convert me to a life of crime. But I wasn’t totally sure that breaking into your own house counted as a major crime. Would my mom ground me if she found out? I wasn’t sure. But I knew she would ground me for the champagne.

The sand was damp and cool underneath our bare feet as we walked up the beach, the reflection of the moon on the ocean making it bright enough that we could easily find our way.

“Um, guys,” I said, realizing that, while it was light, it wasn’t quite light enough to see to figure out how to break into the house. “Should we have, like, flashlights or something?”

“Our phones, Iris. Duh,” Chloe said.

“Okay, yeah. But our phone flashlights aren’t that big,” I said.

“Are you trying to get out of a dare?” Dabney asked. “Because that’s what it sounds like to me. I feel like there are ramifications for going against the triple dare.”

Maybe I was trying to get out of it. I could see the house in front of me now, and we turned right to make our way over the sand dune that I knew very, very well. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” I whispered. “We could get in trouble.”

“Just think: Golden Goose. Golden Goose.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s your own house,” Dabney answered. “Plus, we’re only kids. We can’t be tried in a grown-up court of law.” She paused. “Right?” she asked Chloe.

“How on earth would I know? Why don’t you ask the daughter of the prison lord?” Chloe said. Then she gasped and put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Iris. I’m drunk. I didn’t mean that.”

I couldn’t be mad at her for saying something true, even if it did kind of sting. My dad was in jail. My house was locked up with crime scene tape around it. “You’re stating the obvious,” I said. “But I don’t actually know either.”

We walked around the perimeter of the pool and up the outdoor steps. I was proud of how super quiet we were being. Well, quiet, that is, until Chloe tripped up the top step and fell into Dabney, who fell into me. Then, somehow, we were all in a pile on the front porch, laughing hysterically. This, I knew, was 10 percent champagne, 90 percent girl giggles that only three best friends really knew how to produce in each other.

“I love you guys,” I said.