“Wait!” Bandit pushes the hair off his forehead. “You can’t just drop this bombshell and take off. I have so many questions—”

“Me too,” I interrupt, edging toward the door. “But I can’t explain anything to you until I figure out the answers myself.”

“But, Alice…” He stands and begins to move toward me.

“Later,” I blurt out. “I have to get out of here.”

I flee from his house, praying that he doesn’t follow. My heart’s pounding so hard that I wouldn’t be able to hear footsteps, even if there were any. But when I arrive home, winded from the run, and I see that I’m alone, I stop to take a shaky breath.

I have only one destination in mind. One spot that makes any sense. One place where I hope to find my answers.

I head straight to the bedroom next to mine. The one that’s been by my side ever since we moved into this house—and every house before that.

Archie’s room is a mess: Marie Curie T-shirts and khaki shorts strewn on the floor, stacks of old textbooks burying his desk. The comforter hangs half on, half off the mattress, and the pillow is a misshapen ball shoved in the corner. Dawn is fast approaching, judging by the soft splashes of light dispersing the shadows in the room.

And my brother’s not here.

I sink onto the tangled mess of his sheets, trying not to breathe in the musky scent of dirty laundry and old books. He was home last night. Right before Zeke visited, I went down to the basement to bring him a snack.

“Brother Bear,” I said in the world’s worst British accent. “May I interest you in some Oreos and a spot of milk?”

Archie dragged his eyes from the computer screen, blinking like I was a baffling line of code. “Huh?”

“It’s from Berenstain Bears,” I said, feeling faintly foolish. “You know how Mama Bear was always giving them milk and cookies? And in one of the books, she was teaching them manners?”

His blinks only grew more pronounced.

“They decided to be extra polite to dissuade Mama, and that made us go around for weeks, speaking in a British accent—” Cutting myself off, I sighed. “Oh, never mind. You don’t remember.”

Although I don’t see how he could forget. My parents were always busy, and my genius brother started reading when he was three. So, guess who was in charge of my bedtime stories? Together, we systematically worked through a hundred Berenstain Bears titles, with him reading out loud and me tucked against his side.

The memory of it is indelibly imprinted on my mind. But I guess Archie’s got more important things crowding his gray matter.

Turning, I began to trudge away.

“Why, Sister Bear, I didn’t recognize you without your pink bow,” Archie said in an affected, posh voice.