I could understand why Becca was feeling a little left out. It was true that everyone else in the family was going away that weekend. See, my parents and Aunt Cecelia had been invited to this big family wedding inMassachusetts. But it was the kind of wedding that kids aren't invited to. (Squirt, our baby brother, wasn't invited either, but he was too young for my parents to leave behind. He would spend the day of the wedding at the hotel with a baby-sitter.)

For me, the wedding came at the perfect time. I had been nervous about asking my parents if I could go toNew York, and I had been shocked when they agreed immediately. But the fact was that they were probably just relieved to know that I had somewhere to go that weekend, so that they wouldn't have to figure out what to do with me. Anyway, once I had a place to go, the rest was easy. Mallory's parents had invited Becca to stay at their house. I guess it doesn't make much difference to them if another kid is in the house, since Mallory has seven brothers and sisters!

"But why do I have to stay with the Pikes?" asked Becca, sounding a little whiny. "If I have to be abandoned, I want to stay with Charlotte." Charlotte Johanssen is Becca's best friend.

"Becca," I said, trying to be patient. "Charlotte and her parents are going away this weekend, too. You know that."

"Everybody's going away," she wailed. "Everybody but me. Even Squirt gets to go! It's not fair." She buried her face in my pillow.

"Squirt is only going because he's too little to be away from Mom and Dad," I said, rubbing her back. "And he's not going to the wedding. He's going to stay with a sitter, at the hotel."

Squirt's real name, in case you're wondering, is John Philip Ramsey, Jr. A big name for a baby, right? That's what the nurses thought when he was born. He was the smallest baby in the hospital's nursery, so they nicknamed him Squirt, and the name has stuck. Now he's not such a squirt anymore. He's learning to walk and talk and feed himself, and he's incredibly cute.