Ali pictured goats hopping around Mount Everest dressed in multicolored sweaters like the ones in Emily’s cupboard. She was glad Emily couldn’t see the secondhand sweaters, with their multiple snags and holes, jammed into her dresser at home. Even after she put on her windbreaker and they left Emily’s house, she continued to steal looks at the wonderful cashmere.

The park, King’s Square, topped a steep hill and was surrounded by the City Market, the Imperial Theatre, and several tall buildings. Ali knew Emily had made the right choice when she saw all the people and animals. This was the perfect spot for a field study.

“I’ll take pictures, and you take notes about what we see,” Emily said.

First on the list was an old lady tossing peanuts at a dozen chubby gray squirrels, followed by a young man throwing a Frisbee to a German shepherd. A flock of pigeons sat atop the bandstand; their strangled ooh-ooh-ooh calls made Ali smile. A speckled frog hopped among a bed of asters. The list of organisms grew:

• fourteen squirrels
• two chipmunks
• twenty-two pigeons (except they kept flying away, so this was a guess)
• four dogs
• five sparrows
• one worm
• one frog
• one rabbit (someone was carrying it)
• forty-eight trees (then Ali lost count)
• thirty-eight people
• six hundred flowers (Ali guessed the number)

As they walked back to Emily’s house, they discovered even more organisms:

• eighteen squirrels
• six chipmunks
• eight crows
• three blue jays
• bacteria (in a puddle)
• three toadstools
• eighty-seven trees
• one hundred-plus bushes
• two hundred-plus flowers in pots or planted
• twelve dogs
• twenty-four cats
• fifty-seven people

They cheered whenever they spotted something new. Despite her fancy clothing, Emily was willing to kneel on the ground to get the perfect close-ups of puddles and toadstools. They laughed so much that Ali was giddy. She realized with a start that she hadn’t worried once during the trip, thanks to the magic of Emily. For the first time in days, she was as light as the fine mist in the air.

It seemed Emily felt the same way. “This was so much fun.”

Ali smiled. “It was, wasn’t it?”

Emily stopped. She turned to Ali, eyes shining. “Are you in a hurry?”

Ali looked at her watch. “No. My dad’s not picking me up for another hour.”

“Want to go on an adventure?”

“What kind of adventure?” Experience had taught Ali that it wasn’t safe to assume all adventures were fun. Her parents called their multiple moves “adventures,” when the better description would have been “tortures.”

Emily began to hop from foot to foot. “Mom says there’s seals at Tin Can Beach.”

“I heard that on the radio.”