After dinner, Mal told Becca she could watch TV with the others for an hour, and then it would be time for bed. Becca sat in the corner of the couch, as far away from everyone else as she could get, and pulled a pillow over her stomach. When the phone rang, though, she jumped up, smiling. "That's my mom!" she said, looking happy for the first time all day. Luckily, she was right.

Becca seemed better after the phone call, but Mal still had a hard time getting her into her pajamas. "I'm not going to sleep, so why should I put on my pajamas?" asked Becca logically. Finally Mal coaxed Becca into bed, and that’s when I called.

After she hung up with me, Mal returned to her bedroom. She didn't tell Becca that I'd called, since she didn't want to excite her. It was getting late. Instead, she pulled her well-

worn copy of Charlotte's Web from the shelf, and began to read. Becca listened intently for a while, but her eyelids began to droop before Mal was even halfway through the chapter. Like I said, it always works!

Chapter 7.

"Beep, beep, beep, CRASH!" I heard the noises from the street below. Stacey had told me I'd probably be wakened up by the sound of garbage trucks backing up (that was the "beep, beep, beep" sound) and by the noise of cans being thrown into the backs of the trucks (that was the "CRASH"). She was right about the noises, but she wasn't right about their waking me up. According to the clock on Stacey's night table, it was only six. in the morning, but already I felt as if I'd been up for hours. I hadn't slept well at all.

It wasn't that I was uncomfortable on the futon, or that I was nervous about being in the city. It was that I couldn't stop thinking about what Quint and I had seen and heard. Jewel thieves! Mean, nasty jewel thieves. Mean, nasty jewel thieves who knew my name!

They knew what I looked like, too. And they'd probably seen me leaving Quint's