“His name is Izzy, which can be a boy’s name, too, and I like him as a friend.”

My cheeks turned pink, and Frankie put the phone really close to her face, so I could only see one eye and part of her nose.

“You’re lying,” she said flatly. “Send me a picture.”

“I’m not going to take a picture of him!” I said, squishing down into my shoulders, embarrassed. “And there’s this other girl who likes him. They go to school together. She—”

“Are you still afraid of the old man?” Frankie interrupted, yawning.

Stop interrupting me! I shouted at her in my head, but not out loud. It sucked when she switched gears like that, but I didn’t have the energy to say anything.

“Actually, yeah,” I said. “We had to take pictures at camp, and he was in the background of one of mine, staring at me.” I paused and lowered my voice. “I think he’s stalking me.”

“Find him and ask him why,” Frankie said, like it was nothing to just track down a scary person and demand to know something.

“I’d never do that,” I said.

“I would.”

“I know.”

I’d thought about telling Aunt Maureen or Uncle Bran, but they’d have told my mom. I didn’t want her to freak out and make me go home. And I didn’t want her to not freak out and brush it off and make me feel like an idiot either.

Frankie got up and grabbed a notebook from the desk, plus a pen with a fuzzy ball stuck to the end. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, with the phone propped up on the pillow, she started writing something.

“Do you want to get off the phone?” I asked.

“I want a picture of Izzy,” Frankie said, her eyes on her notebook. “And I want you to have fun. I want Colette to be alive. And I want another tornado to hit our town, not to do damage, but just so I can see it. But I want Colette back the most because it’s not fair we were fighting when she died.”

Her wandering commentary threw me off—mostly the part about Colette. Where other people tiptoed around the subject, using soft tones and words, Frankie just stomped through it, matter-of-fact, talking about Colette and her death like she’d talk about going to the arcade. It was unsettling. But it might have also been okay. It was better than “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I’m sorry you were fighting when she died,” I said sincerely. “That must feel awful.”

“Box,” Frankie said.

“Okay,” I said. “What?”

“I put my feelings in a box.”

“I don’t know what you’re . . .” I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.