I swung my backpack around onto the floor beside me, and it hit the ground with a thunk. It was a big bag, a navy blue camping pack Dad had used in college. It was dingy and faded and spattered with paint. One of the straps was broken. Every time we cleaned out the closets, Mom threatened to throw it away, but Dad had refused to let her. “My misspent youth is in that bag,” he’d said to her, more than once. “It’s full of stories the kids aren’t ready for yet. But someday, when they’re older, they’ll want to hear about the year I studied art in Paris, and then hiked across Europe with that banjo player and his dog, don’t you think?”

Then Mom would roll her eyes and storm out, and Sam and I would look at each other and nod, because we did want to hear those stories.

One time, when Mom had suggested we donate the bag to Goodwill, Dad had actually growled at her. “Argh!” he’d said. “How can you suggest such a thing, you unsentimental woman? Don’t you remember that one misty night, on the mountain above Chattanooga?”

He’d raised his eyebrows at her, and Mom had blushed and left the room, shouting, “What am I going to do with you, Paul Davidson!”

Dad had shoved the bag back into the closet then and winked at me. “You never know,” he’d said. “Someone might need this good old bag again someday.”

And now, at last, someone did.

I crouched down beside it, unbuckled the top, and began to unpack everything I’d brought with me. Cans and bottles. Bags and jars. They spread and rolled out onto the floor around me.

“I know it looks like a weird bunch of stuff,” I said without looking up. “But there’s a method to my madness. I promise.”

Jasper leaned over from her chair to see what I was doing as I attempted to untangle a long strand of lights that had gotten caught on the lining of the bag. She shook her head at me. “Nice idea,” she said. “But I told you, I don’t have power.”

“Not so fast,” I said in triumph as the little solar panel came free from the bag. “Check this out.”

“Oooooooh,” said Jasper. She set down her spoon.

“Right?” I said. “We were going to decorate our back deck with these last summer. But it never happened, and they’ve been living in a desk drawer ever since. The trick will just be to put the solar panel somewhere it can get light, but then make sure the bulbs are somewhere nobody can see them through the windows if they happen to walk past.”

“Wow,” said Jasper. “I underestimated you, Leah. You’re a serious sneak, huh?”