If this is their tree house, we won’t have a secret place after all. And we’ll have one more reason to hate Carter and Jason.

As they approach, we lie flat on our bellies and peer over the edge of the platform. They walk right under the tree without looking up. They don’t see us or our bikes. They’re too busy arguing with each other.

“You better not tell anybody about this,” Carter says to Jason. He’s the bully in charge, tall and skinny, with a long, narrow face and small, mean eyes set too close to his nose. He tells Jason what to do, and Jason does it. The hit man, Skylar and I call him.

Jason’s short and squat, built close to the ground. His face is round, and his chin kind of blends into his neck. He’s as dumb as an empty tin can rolling down the road. He scuffs along, hands stuffed in his pockets. His baseball cap is pulled low, hiding his face.

All of a sudden Carter shoves Jason and almost knocks him down. “Keep your big mouth shut. I mean it. You’re always blabbing stuff. One of these days you’ll get us in trouble.”

“Okay, okay,” Jason mutters. “I won’t say nothing about him or what he does. We got a good deal. Why mess it up? I’m not stupid.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Carter says, fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his jeans pocket and lighting one. He doesn’t offer the pack to Jason.

Tough guy, I think.

They walk up Marie Drive without talking and disappear from sight.

“Whoa. That was close.” Skylar rolls over on her back and stares up at the leaves. “I wonder what their big secret is.”

“Probably something totally boring,” I say.

“I bet Jason would tell me.”

“Why would he tell you anything?”

She laughs. “Because he’s in love with me. Haven’t you noticed the way he looks at me?”

I laugh too. In fact, we laugh so hard we almost fall out of the tree. “Are you serious?” I ask her.

She snorts a last laugh and says, “Yeah, I am serious. Just before vacation, he started leaving notes taped to my locker. You wouldn’t believe how bad his spelling is.”

“You never told me!”

“I didn’t tell anyone. I just wadded them up and threw them away. It’s so gross. If other kids found out, I’d never live it down.” Skylar narrows her eyes at me. “Promise you won’t tell, Abbi.”

“Of course I won’t.” I check the time on my phone. “Oh, no. It’s after four already. I’ll never beat Mom home.”

We climb down and pull our bikes out of the weeds. Skylar starts pedaling toward Marie Drive, but I stop her. “That’s the way Jason and Carter went. What if we catch up with them?”