Just as it had been when I stole it five years ago.

Simone looked at me, completely confused.

“What on earth is going on? Where did that come from?” asked Simone.

But Leo didn’t even care. He reached for it, and before I knew what he was doing, he picked up the heavy scope and unscrewed the focuser. He shook it, and out fell a small, rolled-up piece of paper. He unrolled it. It was a picture—a super faded one—of a young Dr. Leo Lacamoire, and a little girl. They were pressed cheek to cheek, laughing.

Then the great Dr. Leo Lacamoire, PhD, world-renowned scientist, bent his head and began to cry.

And the sun began to shine again.

18

AUGUST, FIVE YEARS AGO

Seven years old

Five years before I dug up that time capsule for the second time, when the middle of the day turned as dark as the night, I was seven years old.

A summer of being seven means sunshine and library books and the freedom of days with no responsibilities. My sisters were eleven and thirteen, both older and younger than I was the summer of Dr. Leo Lacamoire. We did everything together when Blair wasn’t at dance and Jade wasn’t at piano lessons, which she still took back then. They were my best friends.

I didn’t have a ton of other people to hang around. Sophie had gone to spend the summer with her grandparents in Denver, and Lex still lived in Minneapolis. All I had was Blair and Jade, really, and all they had was me, because our town was tiny and neither of them could drive yet. But that was fine. They were all I needed. I would have chosen them, anyway. Blair was our fearless leader, throwing down dares and trying to be the bravest. Jade was fierce, flighty, funny, always making us laugh. And me? I was just along for the ride.

One day, we were at the library. We were almost always at the library. Blair liked to read comics, Jade always chose books about girls her own age going to normal schools and having normal problems, and I would read pretty much anything. We would pick out books and bring them by the bagful to the dock, where we’d smear on sunscreen and peel clementines and read for hours.

“Nice shirt,” someone snorted. I turned and saw a boy a little older than me; maybe Jade’s age.

I looked down. I had a Stormtrooper on my shirt. So what?

“Thanks . . . ,” I said nervously.

He rolled his eyes. “Bet you don’t even know the difference between a clone trooper and a Stormtrooper.”

My face got hot. I do, too, I wanted to yell.

“Girls don’t know anything about Star Wars,” he said. “Do you even know what Luke’s home planet is?”

Tatooine.

“Or who Ahsoka is?”

Anakin’s Padawan.

“Or who became the first chancellor of the New Republic?”