I headed for my room, where I grabbed a couple of bathing suits from my dresser. Then I searched around the closet for my goggles. I hadn’t been swimming in a long time, and I couldn’t remember seeing my goggles in forever, but I hated to swim without them. They weren’t in there. And they weren’t under my bed or in the corner under the chair either.

At last, I sighed, walked over to my desk, and pulled open my junk drawer. My dreaded junk drawer. The land of no return. It was a total disaster, but when I couldn’t find something, it usually turned up in there.

Once, a few years back, Dad and Mom had had a fight about making me clean my room. Mom had been yelling at me about all the little toys and trinkets I’d strewn all over my furniture and floor. She’d told me that everything had a place, and my job was to put things in their right places. Dad had laughed at her. I remembered how he’d picked up a Popsicle stick with flowers drawn on it in glitter glue. “And where do you suppose the proper place for this is?” he’d asked Mom. “Give the kid a little leeway, Rachel.”

Mom had stared at him for a minute and then gone over to my desk, opened the bottom drawer, pulled out my construction paper and modeling clay, and moved them to the office. From that day forward, whenever I wanted to keep little things that didn’t have a place, I’d just shoved them into the drawer. I almost never opened it except to shove more in, so it was always stuffed full. But somehow it made me feel good, to know that if I wanted to save something, I could. That there was a place for the things that had no other place.

Now, as I reached to pull it open, the drawer jammed. It wouldn’t open at all. Almost as if someone was inside the drawer, pulling from the other side. I yanked on it and rocked the whole desk. I could almost feel the room shaking. Argh. I tried to wiggle it, jimmy it loose, but nothing worked.

Finally, I gave up. Jasper was waiting, and this was taking way too long. I’d just have to deal with chlorine eyes. Swimsuits in hand, I ran to the linen closet for towels, and then I made for the living room. But just as I was opening the front door, Mom appeared in the hallway and called out after me.

“Hey, Leah, can we say you’ll try to be home by four? We haven’t seen you much lately. It seems like you’re always either gone or sleeping. Your dad and I thought it might be nice to go out for sushi or something. Reconnect.”