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The next day starts in a very similar way, except it’s pouring rain outside. Sophie and I get ready for school, rush out the door with Jade because we’re a little late, again, but this time we drive over to the Anthony’s and see David and Isa waiting for us on their front porch.

Isa smiles hugely when she sees Jade’s car coming up the street, and hops around, waving at us. David has to hold her back by her shirt to keep her from running into the deluge to meet us, but he looks pleased when we pull up.

He rushes to our car with an umbrella to help Sophie out. I turn to look at her. “You going to be all right?” I ask before she shuts the door.

Sophie looks at little nervous, but then she glances at Isa and the Anthony’s house and the serious look on her face vanishes. “Yeah. I’ll be okay. I’ll see you later, Cara.”

David walks her to the house and then comes back and slides into the backseat. I watch Sophie and Isa dash into the house with one last wave at us.

“She looked happy,” David notes as we drive off.

“Which one of them?” I ask.

“Both, I guess,” David answers.

“Yeah.” I sit back comfortably. “Yeah, they did.”

Today, Shawnee Mission East already seems familiar to me. I don’t flinch away from the building as we enter (at least, no more than a normal person does from school) and I even introduce myself to some of the people Jade and David seem to know. A group of kids that are clearly the popular clique call David over to them. He hesitates, but Jade waves him off.

“I’ll see you guys after school, right?” he checks before he walks away.

“We’ll be right here,” Jade confirms. The group of people he’s walking toward are giving Jade and I some looks, like we should know better than to talk to David Anthony. Jade winks, infuriating them further, and calls out “See you later, Dave!”

He shakes his head without turning around, but I can see the smile on his face. He clearly knows exactly what she’s doing. Jade grins more widely as the group closes in on him, bombarding him with questions and shooting us more glares.

Max is in the classroom when we arrive for first period.

He smiles up at us. “Sophie doing all right?” he asks me.

“She’s doing great,” I tell him, touched that he remembered to check to see how she is. “She seems really excited for today to happen, actually. I think she and Isa can handle Rodney. I hope so.”

“Isa looked like a tough little girl,” Max agrees. “I wonder when the dads adopted her?”

Jade shrugs, clearly wondering the same thing.

“You guys haven’t met Isa before?” I ask them, surprised. I had assumed she and David have always been siblings, but, now that I spend some time considering it, it makes complete sense that they haven’t.

“It must have been just in the last couple years,” Jade says. “She’s adorable. And David obviously loves her. I think it’s good for him. To have a sibling, I mean.”

Max nods, expression thoughtful.

“Cara,” he says, turning to me. “Would you mind if I hang at your place again after school today? Mom’s at work all day, and I never know when the stepfather from hell is going to make an appearance at home. I don’t want to be there if he does”

I grimace in sympathy. “Sure you can,” I tell him. “I can’t guarantee it’ll be as exciting as yesterday was though.”

“We’ll ask David if he wants to come too,” Jade says, inviting herself over without a second thought.

I smile at her. “Sounds good.”


I beat Crispin to chemistry this time, and I’m sitting anxiously at our lab table when he enters. Yesterday could’ve been some fluke and he could have retreated back into his “I don’t talk to anyone” shell. But he seems genuinely happy to see me here.

“So be honest,” he says as he gets his books out. He’s wearing an emerald sweater that makes his eyes look even more green than they did yesterday. “How much of my notes did you actually read?”

I pull a face. “I read your note to me,” I tell him. “But after that I seem to recall tossing the entire spiral into my bag and forgetting about it for the rest of the night.”

He looks exasperated. “How do you expect to learn if you don’t even try?”

“Well, clearly, the plan here is to not to learn…” I say.

Crispin smirks. “Fine then. I guess I’ll just have to talk to Mr. Marks and tell him we should start tutoring right away. I’m sure he’ll agree when he hears just how far behind you really are.”

My glare doesn’t seem to faze him in the slightest.

“Your choice,” he says he says with a shrug and an I-just-won-the-argument expression.

“Why do you care how I do in this class? Shouldn’t you be more concerned with your own grade than you are with mine?” I ask him.

“I don’t have to be worried about my grade. But I do not want to be responsible for you failing the class.”

“First of all,” I notify him, “who says I’m going to fail? I was picturing a solid D. Possibly even a C, depending on how well I cram. And second, what makes you responsible if I fail?”

“Because I would have had the ability to help you not fail, but done nothing. So it would reflect just as heavily on me as it would on you. And then there’s the personal regret I would feel…”

I appreciate his point, but I will not be swayed. “Still sounds like it would be my fault,” I say. “Tell you what, I will accept all responsibility for my poor grades, thereby liberating you from the ‘personal regret’ and agony you would otherwise feel.”

Crispin grins, but there is something behind it that gives his next words more weight than they might have otherwise had. “It doesn’t work like that, Cara.”

We end the conversation there. Class is starting anyway.

Crispin passes me a note halfway through class. So, I hear you met James yesterday, it reads.

Before replying I write: Is this going to be a thing with you now? How can I learn if you continually distract me with note passing?

Crispin just smiles and passes it back. I respond, Yes, we met. He’s in my Photo class. You guys seem rather chummy. Which was odd, given your reputation for talking to no one.

I suppose James is just an exception, Crispin writes. Our parents moved here together; they work for the same company. So we’re neighbors and whatnot. Funny, people don’t usually count James in the list of people I talk to.

I noticed that. James actually said something like that too. He said that next you, most people found him forgettable.

Crispin seems slightly surprised when he reads that. He said that?

I simply nod, so Crispin takes the page and writes, Well, it would appear that not everyone thinks so anymore.

I blush and try not to let Crispin see. But I think he does anyway. You should ask him to help you out in Photo, if you need it. Crispin continues. He’s quite good at art.

Do you think I need help in ALL my classes just because I’m having chemistry trouble?

I don’t know. Are you exceptionally good at photography?

I don’t write a response, and Crispin laughs quietly, recognizing that the answer must be no. Just as I start to reply, an enormous clap of thunder rumbles across the sky. The rain drums more loudly against the windows.

The lights flicker to accompany the thunder, so students start talking excitedly, clamoring for the power to go out so school will be cancelled. It takes Mr. Marks some time to calm us down, and by the time we get back on topic the bell is about to ring.

“Seriously though,” Crispin says when Mr. Marks gives up and lets us start packing up our things early. “Ask James for help.”

I pretend to be touched. “Crispin are you… trying to help me make friends?” I wipe away a fake tear.

He rolls his eyes. “I’m helping you and James both. You need to meet some people, and you need art help, and he isn’t exactly talkative. Someone has to break him out of his comfort zone.”

“And that person should be me because…?” I ask.

Crispin grins. “You got me to talk, didn’t you?”


The overcast sky has turned an alarming shade of purple-gray since last time I checked, and, when the lights flicker again as I walk down the hall, I too find myself hoping for a power outage (despite the principal’s announcement that a power outage is not expected, so we should continue on with our days). When I get to photography, most of the students are staring at the light bulbs hopefully, Max and Jade included. James is already here too, looking immensely bored and just as gorgeous as yesterday, but even he glances up at the lights briefly. I grin and he catches the look, meeting my eyes and smiling slightly.

“What do you think?” Jade asks me with a meaningful look at the ceiling.

“I say… Twenty-eighty chance. Not in our favor,” I answer.

She pulls a face and uses her backpack as a pillow to lay her head down on the table. Max pats her shoulder comfortingly. “That’s what I was afraid of,” I hear her mumble through her bag.

“Only twenty-eighty?” I hear James murmur to me.

Max and Jade don’t seem to hear him, so I mutter back, “Why? You have a better guess?”

James smiles crookedly. “I say fifty-fifty. Maybe even sixty-forty, us.”

“Pretty confident over there, aren’t you?” I whisper.

He chuckles as Mr. Lincoln starts class.

Jade only raises her head when the lights flicker once again. “This cannot be safe,” she declares. “When, yes when, the lights go out, wouldn’t it be better if we’ve all left the building already? Rather than having a thousand high school students rushing through dark hallways. Someone may die.”

I roll my eyes and I see Max do the same. “You should take that up with the principal, Jade,” I tell her seriously.

“Mr. Sable!” Jade, Max, and I all whip out heads around, though it’s James that Mr. Lincoln just called for. “How’s the project coming?” he asks, approaching our table.

“It’s coming,” James replies vaguely.

“Good, good. Then, since it would seem Jade and Mr. Fedderman are not quite as far along with their own work, would you like to show Miss Weaver here the darkroom, how we process film and prints, how to work our enlargers, and all that?”

James looks at me studiously, and I can feel heat start to rise in my cheeks.

“T-that’s okay,” I stammer, the suggestion completely unexpected. “Jade said she’d-“

“That’s quite all right,” James says, cutting me off. “I don’t mind.”

Mr. Lincoln strolls off with a nod of gratitude.

“You don’t have to do this,” I mutter to James.

“I see no reason not to,” he tells me evenly.

I shrug and follow him obediently through the odd revolving door that leads into the darkroom, knowing Jade’s eyes are glued to me the whole way. I stand still in the middle of the room to give my eyes some time to adjust. James moves off, seeming to have no trouble navigating in the dark. The red light bulbs in here don’t give off much light, so all I can make out is a waist-high shelf running along the three walls of the room, and a shorter one jutting out from the other wall. There’s a sink running in here somewhere, but no other students are around as far as I can tell.

He disappeared from my side for a moment, but now James is back and he shines a bright red light directly into my face. I flinch away.

“Sorry,” he says, no real apology in his tone, and averts the light.

“Is that…a headlamp?” I ask. The red light appears to be coming from his forehead, and when he turns his head away I can see the band wrapping around his head. “I thought your outfit was missing something... Hold onto that thing, we may need it when the power inevitably fails in this building.”

As if in answer, the lights do flicker again, but this time I can barely hear the accompanying thunder. Even the chatter of the classroom has faded away. There’s no sound besides the running water of the sink and James and I.

"Come over here,” James says to me, breaking the silence. He shuts his headlamp off and takes me lightly by the arm, leading me through the dark to the back corner of the room. The shelf we’re walking beside is lined with enlargers, each with their own drawer-full of supplies. The eerie red glow is brightest in this corner, so James uses it to show me where everything is located.

The red lights, while uncanny, illuminate the bones of his face sharply and cast the rest into shadow, making him look ethereal. His hair and eyes look darker than ever, tinged crimson. He doesn’t even start when the lights flicker once more, twice more, and then go out, plunging us into complete blackness.

I, however, leap about a foot in the air at the whip-like crack of thunder, and I immediately grab for the shelf, trying to get my bearings. As far as I can tell, James doesn’t move a muscle. Now I can hear the class outside, overly dramatic shrieks and laughter and excited shouts.

“Sixty-forty it is,” I mutter, mostly to myself. “James, how do we get out? Where’s the door?”

James laughs as if it’s the easiest thing in the world to navigate a never-before-seen room in absolute blackness.

“James?” I say again.

“Cara, relax,” he says easily. “It’s no big deal. I’m just waiting to see if the lights come back on before you go blundering through the darkroom. The last thing we need is a chemical spill or something.”

“Just because I can’t see doesn’t mean I’m an accident waiting to happen! How would I even find the chemicals to spill? They’re on the opposite end of the room.”

James places a hand on my arm just as another equally loud crack of thunder splits the sky. I start again, and this time my foot slips on something I can’t see that’s lying on the ground and I fall backwards in James. My shoulder knocks against his chest, but he catches me easily. For a moment I’m leaning back against him and his surprisingly strong arms are around me. Then he steps away. I’m grateful for the dark; it means he can’t see the blush spreading across my face.

I hear James move off into the darkness. Before I can ask where he’s going, the lights flicker back on. I breathe a sigh of relief. James sets down the headlamp he had evidently just picked up, and, without a word, the two of us step back out into the classroom.

It’s a madhouse, but Mr. Lincoln is doing his best to hush everyone up because the principal has come back over the intercom. School’s cancelled.

Whoops of delight ensue, not only from our classroom but from the ones next door as well, and students flood the hallway. I rush over to grab my bag. Max and Jade are already packing up their things. Jade grins at me.

James has gotten caught on the wrong side of the line of people hurrying for the door, so I snatch up his backpack as well and take it over to him.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” I say hopefully.

He almost smiles, some emotion hidden in his stormy eyes. “See you tomorrow.” And while I wait for Max and Jade to catch up with me, he disappears from the room.


The three of us wait by the door where we told David to meet us. It’s an effort not be trampled by the hoard of students rushing the exit, so there’s a lot of shifting around being done as we try to stay out of the way. David finally comes into view, grinning broadly when he sees us.

“Did you think we’d left without you?” I ask when I see his happily surprised expression.

David shrugs. “Maybe. This is just so weird, to see you all waiting and knowing that it’s me you’re waiting for me. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.”

Jade pats his arm and we make our way out the door. I didn’t think it could be raining any harder than it was this morning, but now it’s like a sheet of water is falling from the sky. I can barely see out the door. Students are mere blurs as they step with a shriek out into the downpour. I have to shout to be heard as we stand just inside the door.

“Who’s car are we going for?” I ask the other three.

Jade and Max look at each other briefly. “Hers,” Max yells back.

I nod, link arms with David on one side and Jade on the other, who grabs Max’s hand, and with a deep breath I sprint, laughing, into the rain. We join the masses that are trying to find their cars. Jade has to lead the way because I don’t even know where to begin to go. I can hardly keep my eyes open as we run, and I’m immediately soaked to the skin.

Ridiculous as it seems, running around in the rain makes me actually feel my age. I spend so much time being an adult, trying to be mature enough to raise Sophie, that it feels good to race through the water, arm and arm with my friends.

Jade keeps turning us around; she clearly doesn’t have a good idea of where we’re headed either. But we find her red Land Rover in the middle of one of the rows of cars, and we all pile quickly in.

Jade doesn’t start the car yet, just sits in the driver’s seat and catches her breath. Her eyes are shining and her hair is a mess. But her smile is huge as she turns to me, giggling. “That might be the first time since we were in elementary school that the power has gone out. Isn’t it wonderful?”

I have to agree that yes, it is. And then a thought hits me. “If the power is out here, than is it out other places? Other schools, I mean? David, will Sophie and Isa need to be picked up?”

“Oh,” David says, “I didn’t think of that. Jade, can we drive by? I’ll call Dad Two.”

Jade pulls out of her spot and joins the line of cars slowly making there way out of the lot. I can’t make out what David is saying into his phone, but I listen as he laughs, clicks off, and leans forward to say, “Yeah. Power’s out at Belinder too.”

“No problem,” Jade says, inching along with the other cars. Then she slams on her brakes suddenly enough that I have to brace myself on the dashboard to keep from being thrown forward. Some boy has run in front of the car and thrown himself to the side when it started moving. Now he comes to my window and pounds on the glass.

When he presses his face closer, I recognize Crispin.

“Holy mother of pearl!” Jade swears and looks at me incredulously. “See what he wants!” she urges when I don’t move. Reluctantly, I crack the door open. Water comes rushing in. Crispin pokes his head in, his curls dripping water onto me. He looks around the car.

“Hey guys,” he says without a trace of embarrassment. “How’s it hanging?”

“What do you need?” I ask him. Two or three different cars honk at Jade for not moving as the line does. She ignores them.

Crispin looks at Jade. “A ride?” he asks with a small grin.

Jade stares at him until I punch her in the arm. “Yeah!” she says. “Sorry, hop in!”

Crispin shuts my door for me and jumps in the backseat with Max and David.

Jade continues to let the car crawl forward as I make introductions. “Everyone, this is Crispin Calaway. Crispin, this is Jade Thatcher, Max Fedderman, and David Anthony.” They all wave at each other. “Crispin and I are chemistry lab partners. Which apparently means he can bum rides off my friends in the middle of a storm…”

Crispin nods. “That’s exactly what it means.”

I smile. “Where to?” I ask him.

“Could you all just drop me off at the Village?” Crispin asks. The Village is a small shopping center just down the street from my new house. It’s kind of on the way to Belinder Elementary. “I’m meeting James there soon,” Crispin continues.

“How’s James getting there?” I say curiously. Jade shoots me a look, which I studiously ignore. I know what she’s thinking. And she might be right, but I’m not going to tell her that.

“Oh, I think he’s already there,” Crispin says dismissively.

I start to ask how he got there, and why Crispin didn’t go with him. But then Jade flips on the radio and we finally get out of the parking lot, so my question is lost in the noise.

Max and David and Crispin thankful start talking to each other as Jade drives, so I look out the window at the pouring rain.

Jade quietly interrupts my thoughts as she pulls onto a side street. “So… who you thinking ‘bout?”

“What makes you think I’m thinking about someone? And who’s to say it’s not Sophie? Or my parents?” I reply with a laugh.

“Are you thinking about Sophie?”

“…No,” I admit.

Jade pumps her fist in triumph. “Ah-ha! I knew it! Are you bummed ‘cause we aren’t giving James Sable a ride too?”

I frown at her. “Please, be more obvious about it. The rest of the car might not have heard you just now.”

Jade grins evilly. “Hey guys!” she calls to the back seat.

I practically climb over the seat to clamp a hand over her mouth as she chuckles. “You are a horrible person,” I tell her.

The boys have stopped talking and are now staring at the two of us. Jade sees them in her rearview mirror and starts laughing harder. I give her a friendly shove and sit back down.

“You have something to share with the class up there?” I hear Max ask us.

I turn to face them. Max is concealing a grin, David looks confused, and Crispin is looking at me in a way that suggests he knows exactly what’s happened. I glare at them all. “As far as you are concerned, that conversation never happened, kapeesh?”

They chuckle. “Understood,” Max says crisply, complete with salute.

I point at him. “Don’t push it.”

He holds his hands up in mock surrender, and Jade cruises to a halt in front of Macy’s in the Village. “Anywhere in particular you wanted me to drop you off?” she asks Crispin.

He glances at the window at the still pouring rain, and then shrugs. “Nah. Here is good. Thanks guys! Max, David, see you next weekend?”

The two call out agreement, we all wave goodbye, and Crispin steps out of the car and disappears.

“What are you doing next weekend?” I ask Max and David curiously.

“He and James Sable have got tickets to some concert downtown!” Max answers excitedly.

“Ooh, what concert?” Jade asks.

“I don’t know,” Max says. “Does it matter?”

“A little,” I laugh. “What if it’s someone who sucks?”

David shakes his head. “I’m sure it’ll be great. Do I detect a hint of… jealousy?”

“…No,” I reply, with the same pause I gave Jade a few minutes ago.

Everyone in the car smiles at me. Apparently I am not very subtle. I’ll have to remember that…

Soon we’ve arrived at Belinder Elementary, so Jade stops the car in front to allow David and I to jump out. There isn’t anywhere to park. Jade motions that she’ll search for a spot while we get the girls. We both nod and sprint to the entrance. There’s some process we have to go through with the secretary to prove that we’re actually related to Isa and Sophie, but we eventually get visitor’s stickers and get waved down the hall to Mrs. Philip’s room.

There are only a few lights still on in the hallway, but it’s bright enough that I can take in the school that my little sister has to go to everyday.

“This place is nice,” I tell David as I look around.

“Isn’t it?” David says. We sidestep a young mother ushering her son down the hallway. “They just had all kinds of construction done. This school is practically nicer than East!”

“Yeah, it is,” I agree.

I gasp and duck into a doorway as we near the classroom. David turns to me quizzically, hiding laughter behind his hand. “How you doing?” he asks me.

I point down the hall. “Mrs. Finch is there,” I hiss, pulling him into the doorway too.

“Ah, I see the problem.” David peeks around me to see. “What are you going to do about it?” he says.

“Something very adult and mature,” I inform him.

David takes my arm and steers me toward the door, ignoring all my protestations. “You’re going to ignore her?”

“That is the plan,” I say grimly.

And I do. Sophie throws herself happily into my arms, and she and Isa start chatting about the day as David and I say goodbye to Mrs. Philips. I don’t spare Mrs. Finch a glance.

“Good work,” David murmurs as we try to find Jade’s car by looking out the front windows.

“Why thank you. It was rather successful, wasn’t it?” I smile.

Sophie spots the car first, so I hold her hand and David and I brace ourselves to again rush into the rain that has yet to let up at all.

“This is ridiculous weather!” I yell to David.

He laughs out loud and holds out his hands. “Welcome to Kansas?”


“So, we’ve decided something,” Jade announces when the four of us climb back in the car. Max has taken the front while we were gone, so David and I put Sophie and Isa in the middle of the backseat and I double-buckle them in.

Max turns in his seat and gives Sophie and I a lopsided grin. “We’re taking you on a tour of the town!”

I look dubiously out the window at the rain, then back at Max.

“The indoor parts of the town,” Max revises. “Come on! There are some great places that you’ll never know about if you don’t let us show you.” He turns to David. “Dave, you got anywhere you need to be soon?”

David shakes his head and looks at Isa. “Isa, do you want to go on a tour?”

“Yes!” Isa cries, pumping her fist in the air. “Soph, come on, let’s go!”

So Sophie turns to me. “Cara, please?”

I catch Jade’s eye in the rearview mirror. She’s grinning at me. “Cara, please?” she says.

I sigh. “Fine.” I try not to smile, but I can’t help it. “Let’s go on a tour!”

They all cheer.

We drive around the Plaza, past the Nelson-Atkins Museum to see the giant badminton birdies on the lawn, and a large park that looks beautiful from what I can see through the sheet of raindrops. David points out the way to the baseball stadium and the amusement park. They show Sophie and I the house down the street from our high school that is so decked out with lights and decorations during Christmas that the neighbors have complained about it multiple times.

“So maybe not the best day for a tour,” Jade says eventually, watching me as I squint out the window, trying to spot Hi Hat, “the littlest coffee shop in the world”, according to Max.

“No, guys. It’s great,” I say, trying to appease them all. “We can do it again sometime, no big deal. It was a really good idea!”

“Just one more place,” Jade tells me. “And then we’ll head for home.”

I agree cheerfully, truly enjoying myself despite the barely visible tour destinations, and Jade takes us down some more narrow streets to stop in front of a crooked brick building.

“And we’re actually going into this one,” Max says, unbuckling, “so everybody out!”

We pile out of the car and into the rain, which has lessened at this point, to push through the door of the little shop. I stand for a moment in shock. Then: “This place is ah-ma-zing,” I announce. “I think I am going to live here. Sophie, let’s away! I must pack up my things at once!”

Sophie wisely ignores me and walks with Isa to the back and the children’s books. Max sniggers in the background, and I can practically hear Jade shaking her head at me. David just smiles.

“But really,” I say, more quietly. The place is perfect. Or, my version of perfect. I can see a spiraling staircase leading down to another floor, but up on this one there are tall old bookshelves winding their way seemingly haphazardly about. A rolling ladder is attached to the shelves that line the walls. Behind the counter there are stacks of precariously stacked books waiting to be shelved. And, besides us, there is not a soul in the store.

I breathe in deeply the smell of old books and ink and walk off to peruse the shelves. The murmurs of my friends fade into the background. I don’t recognize many of the titles, but I do recognize the authors. I become so engrossed in flipping through the books that I don’t hear it when a man comes up behind me.

“You must be a reader,” he says in a quiet voice, making me start so violently that I nearly drop the book in my hands. When I turn, I’m faced with a small, gray-haired Hispanic man with dark brown eyes that glitter knowledgably. “I recognize a fellow spirit when I see one.”

I return his kind smile. “This place is wonderful,” I tell him. “Do you work here?”

“Work here? I’ve owned this store since 1987.”

“Lucky,” I mumble.

“I have to say,” he continues, “I don’t usually get so many young people in here. Not unless the school year is about to begin. Then everyone is looking for books priced as low as they can find them.”

I put the novel I’m holding back on the shelf. “My friends are showing me around the town,” I say. “My sister and I just moved here, and they thought I would like this place so they included it in the tour.” I shrug. “I don’t know how they knew, but they were right.”

The man nods. “Funny, isn’t it, how people you’ve just met can know things about you that you didn’t even realize they noticed?”

I look at him curiously. “Yeah. It is funny. But it’s a good feeling.”

“Of course it is,” he says, walking toward the counter. “It means they really care about you.”

I glance around the store: at David where he’s helping Sophie and Isa reach the books on the top shelves. At Jade, who is laughing and clutching at the rolling ladder as Max pushes her along the shelves.

“How can you tell?” I ask the man after a moment, following him to the counter.

“Oh, my dear, anyone would be able to tell,” he smiles. “In fact, close as you all seem, I never would have guessed that you were new to their lives.”

A rush of true warmth floods through me; I knew they liked me, sure, but I didn’t realize how much. I didn’t know it was so obvious to outsiders too. “Thank you,” I tell him sincerely, “Mr…?” he isn’t wearing a nametag.

“Pelegro,” the man says, holding out a hand to shake.

I take it. “Hi, Mr. Pelegro. I’m Cara Weaver.”

“Very nice to meet you,” Mr. Pelegro says to me.

“Hey Cara!” Max calls. “You’re the one who said you love Jane Eyre, right?”

I hurry over to him. Max is holding a worn black book with gold lettering on the front. He holds it up for me to see. “You said you don’t have a copy?” he continues.

“Max!” I cry, throwing my arms around him and slipping book from his hands. “This is amazing! But… how did you remember I told you that?”

He shrugs. “Jade remembers too.”

Jade is still up on the ladder, but she grins down at me. “Which copy do you like better? That one, or this one?” She pulls a red volume off the shelf and drops it to me. I hand it back to her.

“I like the black one.”

“Told you, Max,” Jade says as she reshelves it.

Sophie skips over to us. She’s holding a stack of books in her arms. I stop her. “I will buy you two. Pick,” I tell her.

She frowns at me, and I raise my eyebrows at her. “Okay,” she concedes. She sets them all on the floor and sorts through them. Eventually Sophie holds up four.

“Two,” I say firmly.

Sophie sits and thinks seriously, but before she decides Mr. Pelegro comes and kneels down next to her. “Big decisions?” he asks. He doesn’t seem to mind that she’s strewn books about his clean floor. I nod at him. He winks.

David and Isa come out of children’s books to join us, Isa balanced atop David’s shoulders. “We’re ready to go when you guys are,” David says.

“Hold on,” Sophie tells him sternly. “I haven’t picked my books yet!”

“Young lady,” Mr. Pelegro says to Isa. “If you had to pick one of these for your friend, which would it be?”

David walks over so Isa can see the titles Mr. Pelegro is pointing to. She contemplates her choices carefully. “The BFG,” she finally says.

Mr. Pelegro looks questioningly at Sophie. “Do you trust this girl?”

Sophie meets his eyes earnestly and nods. “And you want this one the most?” he asks pointing to another. Sophie nods again, so Mr. Pelegro stacks up all the others and hands Sophie’s books to her. She smiles up at him. “Thank you, sir.”

He waves her off. “It’s my job, ma’am.”

I take the books from Sophie and pile them on the counter with my own. “Thank you,” I say as Mr. Pelegro rings me up.

“It was a pleasure, my dear,” he replies. When he pushes the books back to me, he beckons me to lean closer. “I have been searching for a long time for someone to help me look after this shop. I don’t suppose that you would be interested?’

I gape at him. “Be interested?” I finally manage. “I would love to!” Then I pause. “Only… I don’t have a way to get here. No car.”

“Ah,” he says. “Well, if you ever figure out a means to get here, give me a call.” He passes a card with the name and number of the store to me, and I gratefully tuck it into my pocket. “I will,” I promise him.

As I grab my purchases everyone else calls out thanks to Mr. Pelegro and I follow them, already wondering how I can convince my parents to help me find a way to take the job. I’ve never actually had a job before; we’ve never stayed in a city long enough that it’s been worth it. But working in a bookstore, especially an obscure, independent one, is like a dream job for me. Not typical of many high school students, I would imagine, but there it is.

“Thank you guys,” I tell them sincerely as we begin the drive home. “That was exactly what we needed.”

“Hey.” Jade meets my eyes in the mirror and smiles. “What are friends for?”

They’re for this, I think, leaning my head against the window and closing my eyes. They’re for this.

END OF CHAPTER THREE

I love the ending at the bookstore. So sweet, showing how much her friends care. I sincerely hope she finds a way to take the job...heck I'd want that job!

I liked the darkroom scene too, although it was over a bit too quick for me. I like James' character and hope to see more of him in the future. I think I've decided on James over Crispin now. Crispin seems to find ways to insert himself into Cara's life, while James doesn't seem to be trying quite so hard.

I've been thinking about maybe extending the darkroom scene a bit, though I can't decide what else should happen...
And I'm glad you're getting so caught up in the characters and what's going to happen to them!
Thanks for the feedback!