“I love computers. I love the Internet. Except now that I consider it, I’ll skip sound effects. They take too long and people would give up.”

“Your parents allow you to use the Internet?” said Papa, scandalized.

“Now, Papa. Who else’s parents would be involved?” Macey didn’t usually give her grandparents an opening to discuss Mom and Dad’s lifestyle. Mom and Dad avoided confrontation by not visiting a whole lot. They were only two miles away, and they saw Nana and Papa barely once a month.

“Or maybe the fire,” said Macey. “That would be a good story.”

“What fire, dear?” said Nana.

“The one that burned the Demitroffs’ barn down. I was just resting on the foundation this afternoon. That old arson. With the man trapped inside. I could read old newspapers and go to the fire department and get old records.”

There was an odd pause. It was long enough for Macey to look up from her excavation of asparagus out of her omelet and see that her grandmother and grandfather were looking at each other and not at her.

“Macey, that isn’t history,” said her grandfather. “That isn’t anything. It’s just an old building that isn’t there anymore.”

“And nobody was trapped inside,” said Nana. “Is Austin going tomorrow with the Saturday Group? I am so interested that he is still living here. He’s such a cutie. Do you know any details yet?”

Austin’s grandparents, the Fents, lived across Shell Road from Macey’s grandparents. Macey and Austin hardly knew each other, although he had visited Shell Beach for a month every summer. Austin was Macey’s age but always acted either ten years older or ten years younger, so no matter how cute he was, Macey had not bothered to get to know him better. She didn’t know what he was doing here for the school year. Couldn’t be anything good. You didn’t skip your sophomore year at your own high school in Chicago with your lifelong friends and then go live with your grandparents in another state just for the fun of it.

Nana was as fond of gossip as she was of food. “Even when I ask the gentlest, most neighborly questions,” she said, hurt to be left out of such an important loop, “his grandparents change the subject. I assume his mother is behaving badly and they are ashamed of her. I cannot believe you have gone to school with this boy for so many months and not found out why he’s living here.”

Austin was not in any classes with Macey, although he had several of the same teachers. He’d been here since November, and now it was April, and she had no clue. “He’s probably going with Saturday Group,” she said. “He went last month when they did the soup kitchen.”