“Okay, now, is it my turn to talk?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “I mean, if you want to. . . .”

Jasper grinned and took her deep breath. “Look,” she said, “I am the new girl and I don’t know anyone, and I spend all my time alone too. Hanging out with you was the best time I’ve had in forever. . . .”

“I’m glad!” I said, smiling.

“Yeah, I know,” said Jasper. “And I’m grateful you were so nice to me. But it’s more complicated than that, and I’m, well, I don’t have much money.”

“That doesn’t matter!” I said, shaking my head.

“Except that it really does,” said Jasper, staring me evenly in the eyes. “And it makes me feel terrible when people have to help me, and you helped me, and so I didn’t want to see you again.”

“Oh!”

“Only because I didn’t want you to be always helping me, and feeling sorry for me. Get it?”

“I do,” I said. “Or I think I do. But please, please don’t stay away? You can have our TV for all I care. I will never mind sharing or helping. I will never feel like that. I mean it. I know it.”

“It’s nice of you to say that,” said Jasper. “But my situation is . . . more complicated than I can explain.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care. I don’t care at all, whatever it is.”

Jasper stared at me, and there was a long strained pause. I thought she might tell me what the “situation” was then, and maybe she was considering it, but in the end she just gave a quick nod and said, “Okay, deal!” and stuck out her hand.

So I shook it and said, “Deal!”

Then Jasper laughed and said, “Wow, we are a couple of total freaks, huh?” And I was about to agree with her, but at that very minute the bus stopped and shuddered as the door opened at the front, and Jasper glanced out the window and said, “Oh, this is my stop!”

So I decided to stop worrying and just embrace the freakiness of everything. “Then I guess it’s my stop too!” I said.

Jasper grinned. “Good!” she said. “That’s all settled. And you can help me carry the groceries.”

Which was a very nice answer. I had never wanted to carry groceries so badly in all my life.

A Certain Amount of Power

As I hopped up to follow Jasper, I realized I had absolutely no idea where the bus had taken us. I’d been so focused on our conversation that even when I’d been gazing out the window, it was more like I was gazing at it. Now, as I stepped onto the cracked sidewalk, I looked around myself and knew immediately where we were.