When we finally get serious again, Skylar says, “He’s really cute, isn’t he? The way his hair falls in his face and he flips it out of his eyes. I like him so much. I hope you’re right about him liking me.”

I look at her and can’t believe she’s worried about Jonathon liking her. “Of course I’m right,” I tell her. “You’re totally beautiful.”

If her mother hadn’t arrived just then, we would have had another laughing fit.

The sun is out on Thursday, so we go to the tree house to watch the cars come and go. It’s already hot when we leave. And even more humid. It’s like the trees and mud puddles are breathing water into the air.

“I hope they come today,” I say.

“What if they stop meeting there?” Skylar asks. “We’ll never figure out who they are or what they’re doing.”

“If only we were old enough to drive,” I say, “we could follow them.”

“If we were old enough to drive,” Skylar says, “we’d be at the beach on a day like this.”

“It must be magic to go wherever you like,” I say.

“After we graduate from high school,” Skylar says, her voice dreamy, “we’ll get a car and drive all the way across the country to the Pacific Ocean.”

By the time we come to the end of Marie Drive, we’ve planned the whole trip, including stops at the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and Yellowstone. We’ll camp in a tent to save money, but every now and then we’ll splurge and stay in a fancy motel with a swimming pool and a gym and free breakfast. Our room will have two king-size beds, a walk-in shower with glass doors, and a huge wide-screen TV. Neither one of us has ever stayed in a motel like this, but we’ve seen commercials.

In the tree house, we open our books, but neither of us likes the way the story is going. We’re both afraid something bad is going to happen to the pony. Foreshadowing is what Mr. Boyce calls it when the author throws out hints about the future. We can’t say we haven’t been warned.

Skylar wants to skip ahead and see if the pony is still alive at the end. If it’s not, she says she won’t read the rest. She’ll start another book. Artemis Fowl maybe. That’s what Jonathon’s reading. He loves it.