At the first break between cartoons, however, Beth picked up her empty plate to take it away, hesitated, and looked down at Jessica’s dish.

“You done?”

Jessica looked up. “Yeah…”

Beth bent down and stacked up Jess’s plate on her own, then carried them both back, rattling in her hands, to the kitchen.

Jessica and her father exchanged surprised glances.

He smiled. “Being lame does work sometimes, I guess.”

An hour later Dad decided to be Mr. Responsible. He stood up and stretched, then muted the TV. “So, you guys are going to finish unpacking today, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” Beth said. “Got all day.”

“We really should get some work done before your mother gets home,” Dad said.

“Actually,” Jessica said, “I have to go to this museum downtown. The Clovis Museum or something. For homework.”

“Homework already?” Dad asked. “Back in my day you didn’t get any homework the first week. You were just supposed to hang out for a while, then they’d slowly reintroduce the concept of work.”

“So not much has changed for you, has it, Dad?” said Beth.

Dad gave his new, defeated sigh. He didn’t put up much of a fight against Beth anymore.

Jessica ignored her. “Anyway, Dad, it’s not that far away. I think I’ll just bike it.”

The streets and houses from the night before were still there, recognizable in the daylight. She checked her watch. No chance of being late—she still had an hour to get to the Clovis Museum.

There were so many questions in her mind. What were darklings and slithers, and where did they come from? How had Dess scared off the giant panther with a hubcap? Why hadn’t Jessica ever seen the blue time before coming to Bixby? And how did Rex and his friends know any of this stuff, anyway?

Jessica rode slowly, retracing her steps to piece together where everything had happened the night before. The route from her house to the street where she’d first seen the panther was the fuzziest part of her memory. She’d been following the kitty-slither, dreamily looking around and not paying attention. But it was easy to find the corner of Kerr and Division and, from there, the spot where the frozen car had stood.

Of course, it was gone now. Jessica tried to imagine it jumping suddenly into motion as the secret hour ended, the driver calmly continuing down the road as though nothing had happened. There were no marks in the street, no burned hubcap, nothing to show that a battle had taken place there just eleven hours ago.