They’ve got to be freaked out—someone knocking, someone calling, as if the gods are conspiring to interrupt them.

The ringing stops.

And they don’t answer the door.

If I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes, I’d swear there was no one inside. Which is, of course, the whole point. Now I feel stranded and creepier by the second for lurking outside the door. Should I just bail? What did I think would happen?

Raucous voices float down the hill and, without turning, I know it’s Gordo and Vin Weasel. I can’t stand here any longer and risk drawing their attention to this door, which Leeza will have to walk through sometime. If I make her the object of their speculation—well, I can’t imagine any good outcome.

I dart around the end of the building and trudge up the back stairs to the cutlery shop, defeated. Gordo is just as much my enemy as when the day started, and Leeza is still in Buckman’s grasp.

Status quo for the win.

So Not a Fool

So Not a Fool

Only a religious school would name all its teams The Flames. Tonight, most kids are in the gym for the game. I can only imagine what it’s like for Gordo and the rest of the basketball players (the only team good enough to play other schools) to drive to, say, Oneonta and show up with tongues of Pentecost on their chests and the word Flames on their backs. I mean, seriously, even Frohmeyer can’t be so innocent he doesn’t know what the other schools must think. In a way, it’s justice—it must make Gordo insane. I would kill to take over the cheer squad and help the team really earn its name.

While the other students are watching the game, the decorating committee is working on a new project. The swing looks ah-may-zing, so now we’re onto the rest of the night sky. The shimmering fabric I saw the first day I helped Ma Elena is going to be the cosmos, and she’s ordered hundreds of glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars. Leeza wanted to lay the bolts out on the floor for ease, but Chaz insisted that we hang them all around the room to see how the fabric moves. Ernie (who is now permanently part of the squad) suggests arranging the stars to replicate as many constellations as we can remember.