"You had a phone call," my mom said as soon as I walked into the kitchen. She handed me a slip of paper. "Cary wants you to call him back." A phone number was written underneath his name.

    This was not my favorite day.

    I really didn't feel like calling him back, but curiosity got the better of me. What did he want, anyway? I dialed the number on the paper. The phone rang twice and then somebody picked up. But he or she didn't say anything. "Hello?" I said tentatively.

    "Who's this?" I recognized Cary's voice. I should have known. Who else but Cary Retlin would answer the phone without answering it? "It's Kristy," I said.

    "Yes?" "You called me" I said.

    "Not this time." I wished I could reach through the phone line and smack him. "Come on, Cary, what do you want?" "A truce." "A what?" "A truce," he repeated. "Look. We don't need a repeat of that gym-class thing. We got in a huge amount of trouble over that. I think we should work together this time. I mean, I know you annoy me to no end, and for some reason I seem to annoy you too. But I think we can reach an agreement, can't we? Just to make Ted happy." I was still bristling from "you annoy me" - in what way could I possibly annoy binii - but I had to admit that Cary's idea was a pretty mature concept. What could I do but agree?

    We made plans to interview each other and vari- ous family members. We even talked a little about other sources we could use. Our conversation was surprisingly .. . normal.

    After we hung up, I pulled out the fiction list Ted had given us. I wanted to start thinking about which book I would read. The list looked interesting, and I marked several titles to check out further.

    Little did I know how much trouble that list was about to cause.

    Chapter 4.