Dad stood and held out a hand. “Come on, it’s not too late for breakfast. Mom made her famous puffed-oven-pancakes. Let’s get down there before Kayla tries to throw them in the fireplace again.”

Tick nodded and let his dad help him up, then followed him out of the room, the whole time thinking about the letter and wanting desperately to tell someone about it.

Not yet, he thought. They might think I’m crazy.

~

“So what was that letter all about?” his mom asked. The whole family sat at the kitchen table, little Kayla next to Tick, her hands already sticky after only one bite.

Tick’s hand froze halfway on its journey to put the first chunk of puffy pancake, dripping with hot syrup, into his hungry mouth. He’d hoped his mom had somehow forgotten about the mystery letter; he’d failed to come up with a plan on what to say.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, then stalled for time by popping the bite into his mouth and chewing. He lifted his glass of cold milk and took a long drink, his mind spinning for an answer. “You know that Pen Pal Web site I subscribed to a while back?”

“Oh, yeah!” Mom replied, lowering her own fork. “You never told us how that went—did you finally find someone?” The Pen Pal site took a bunch of data from kids all around the world and then matched them up as writing buddies with others kids their same age and with the same interests. A parent had to approve it, of course, and Tick’s mom had done just that, giving the company all kinds of information and filling out a million forms. Maybe it wasn’t too far of a stretch to think one of the pen pals might want to send a letter via regular mail instead of e-mail. It was Tick’s only chance.

“Maybe,” Tick mumbled through another huge bite. He stared at his plate, hoping she’d move on to grill one of his sisters about something else. She didn’t.

“All the way from Alaska,” she continued. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Uh . . . I don’t know actually. Whoever it was just signed it M.G.”

“Alaska, huh?” Dad said. “Hey, maybe your pen pal knows old Aunt Mabel up in Anchorage. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“I highly doubt it,” Mom answered. “That woman probably hasn’t set foot out of her house in ten years.”

Dad gave her a disapproving stare.

Lisa chimed in, her plate already empty. “Tick, how can you not know who it is? Didn’t you have to give them your address?”

“We told you not to do that unless we checked it out first,” Dad said, his brow creased in concern. “You know what the world’s like these days. Is this from someone we’ve already approved?”