My slippers ribbitribbit as I make my way back up the stairs, with Catniss leaping alongside me, swatting at my feet every few steps. I open my moms’ bedroom door, expecting to find them sleeping in, only to discover the bed already made and my moms nowhere in sight.

“Moms?” I call out.

No answer.

I look everywhere—in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain, even in the closet—but the whole house is quiet.

Too quiet.

My heart starts to race as my mind scrolls through all of the terrible things that could have happened to my family: Abducted by aliens. Swallowed by a sinkhole. Trapped in an alternate universe that sucked in everyone in the world except for Catniss and me. Or maybe I’m the one who’s stuck in an alternate universe!

“Moms!” I scream this time, struggling to breathe normally.

I hear Noah’s bedroom door creak open in the hallway.

“Sadie, stop yelling,” he says, with his eyes sleep-squinty and his big curly hair mushed up on one side of his head, flattened on the other. Catniss darts from Moms’ bed and pounces on my left frog slipper, making it croak out a small ribbit, before she leaps inside Noah’s room.

I let out the breath I’ve been holding, relieved to see him, because at least that rules out the whole alternate-universe thing. But I don’t tell him that.

Instead, I ask, “Where are Moms?”

“Grandpa Ed’s,” he mumbles, and starts to go back to his room. “That means I’m in charge, and I say stop yelling and let me go back to sleep.”

“But it’s Sunday,” I say. “And why didn’t they ask if I wanted to come?”

I love when we visit Gramps. We always go to the park that’s across the street from his apartment building and feed the pigeons and play checkers on this special table that’s made out of two different colors of stone. Gramps likes to talk to everyone we see because he says they all have stories inside them. He even sees stories in me, and he always listens as I tell him all about the graphic novel I’ve been working on: The Interstellar Adventures of S. Hawkins, Special Agent. And he never forgets to ask about the progress of the fairy fortress—not fairy garden—that Jude and I created in the backyard way back when we were in second grade.

“Am I Mom?” Noah snaps at me, in that grumpy way he’s been snapping at everyone lately. “How would I know?”