“I know! I know, but I wanted to see it. I wanted to see the puppy pit, and the horseback riding, and the den where you have big sleepovers. You guys don’t have video footage or cameras around your place and the internet doesn’t reach there, so I couldn’t really find footage to fill out my mental pictures.”

Combing with fingernails, Candy murmured, “That’s how you reach across the gaps, hm?”

“Yeah.”

“There are some kids who live in the area who join in for some swimming and den sleepovers,” Chicken Little said. “You can’t tell them to go away because if you’re bad or rude you don’t get to participate and you’ll get kicked out, but they’re kind of outsiders and it’s really awkward.”

“You’re more an outsider than they are,” Candy said.

“You know what I mean, don’t you? They don’t know about all the cape stuff, or they’re really snotty. Some are okay, like Mason and Kathy, but a lot of the others are such a pain.”

“They live there. They have more right to the swimming hole and den than any of us. Some of them have horses of their own, and they work and do chores with the animals for the whole year to get special privileges,” Candy said.

“But—the Heartbroken always complain about them.” Aiden protested.

“The Heartbroken, in case you missed it, can be the absolute worst, Chicken. Man, I’m so mad at them right now.”

“Ow,” Kenzie said, as Candy tugged too hard.

“Sorry.”

“Am—am I the annoying snooty outsider that’s butting my head into things at Aunt Rachel’s?” Chicken Little asked.

“Yes,” Candy said, at the same time Kenzie said, “Maybe.”

“Woah,” Chicken Little said. “I don’t know if I can even process that. My head is exploding right now.”

He moved his arms to demonstrate, while making a little explosion sound with his mouth.

Kenzie giggled a bit.

“Mannn,” Chicken Little groaned.

A beep of the other vehicle’s horn made me twist around. I looked back and I could see Tattletale and her driver in the armored black land rover, above the glare of their headlights in the heavy snowfall.

“Oh, whoops, sorry Tattletale,” Aiden said. “Shit.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“When I did the explosion sound,” he mimed the sound he’d just made, while moving his hands. “I also made the birds react.”

“React how?”

“Short, silly freak-out from all of the birds.”

The birds that weren’t capable of flying along were packed up in the other car.

The other car honked again.

“I stopped!” Aiden said. He twisted around and looked back, calling out, “I stopped!”

I twisted around myself, to try to get a clearer view of Tattletale, Snuff, and the land rover. It didn’t look like they were honking to warn us about anything.