“Right,” Joey said over her shoulder. “A club. You can be one of us.”

Nate brightened behind his too-thick glasses and looked at Joey with amazement, but not for too long. His eyes couldn’t stray far from Andrea. “You want me to be . . . one of you? C’mon, you guys, what’s the catch? You want me to do your homework or what?”

“No catch,” Andrea cooed. “We just want to be . . . friends. We can make you just like us.”

“Just like us,” said the Yeagers, in perfect unison.

Joey pressed his face to the glass. “What do they call you at school, Nate?”

The chubby boy hung his head and said nothing.

“Do they call you fatso?”

“Do they call you four-eyes?”

Freddy laughed. “Nerd? Pigshit? Brainiac? Lard-ass?”

“Yes!” Nate hissed. His eyes were watery, and a few tears had begun a slow slide down his pudgy cheeks.

“Nate,” Andrea whispered, “you don’t have to take it. Never again.”

“I don’t?”

Joey looked feral in his glee. “None of it. No one’ll ever call you that again. You’ll be one of us. You’ll be a big shot.”

“Open up, Nathan,” Andrea smiled. “Let us in. Don’t you like us?”

“I like you, Andrea . . .”

“You know,” she said, pouting adolescent lips, “I never did thank you for letting me in line that one time. Remember? I mean really thank you. Let me in, Natey. I’ll give you a little kiss.”

“Let us in,” Joey urged impatiently. “We’re buddies, aren’t we?”

Nathan Haskell felt a tingling at the back of his neck, the warning that they were out too late, that their skins were too white, that they somehow clung to his second-floor window with no ledge to support them. It was a trick, he thought, all a trick. They were trying to make him out to be a fool, making fun of him. But their offer . . .

Andrea wouldn’t lie to me. The others might, but not Andrea.

He went to the window. “You can come in, Andrea,” he said as he slid up the sash and loosened the screen. “But only Andrea. I’m not sure I can trust you guys.”

The rest of the children hissed angrily and dropped away from the window. Andrea Hart smiled and took Nate’s hand and climbed into his room.

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Andrea?”

“Never,” she cooed, and came toward him. Nate welcomed her with open arms.

His parents didn’t have the same choice.