It must be hard sometimes for Becca and her family. I'm friends with her older sister Jessi (she's in the BSC), and I know that when they first moved here people were actually mean to them. By now they've been accepted, but it wasn't easy at first.

Charlotte and Becca and I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing our cards and talking about Derek and his show. Just as we were cleaning up, Dr. Johanssen, Charlotte's mom, came home. It was already five o'clock by then, so I said my good-byes and headed back to my house to get ready for our club meeting, which is always at five-thirty and always in my room.

The house was quiet. I knew my parents were still at work. I also knew where I could find Janine. She was, as usual, in her room. Studying. What else is new? I stopped in to say hi to her, and then went into my own room, thinking I should tidy it up a little before the meeting.

As soon as I walked in, I noticed something strange. My room was messy, but that wasn't the strange thing. It's always messy. The strange thing was theway it was messy. It was different. Somebodyelse had made it messy, not me. On my desk, my papers were disorganized in an unfamiliar way. The makeup on my dresser was spread out differently than it had been that morning. And my closet door was hanging open even though I knew that, for once, I'd left it shut that morning.

I couldn't believe it! Had my room been burglarized, even though the rest of the house looked like it hadn't been touched? I started to panic. Then I looked carefully around the room and began to calm down. Nothing was missing. I could see that right away.

At that moment, my friends Kristy and Mary Anne arrived. I wasn't going to have time to put my room back in order because it was almost five-thirty and our club meeting was about to start.

Chapter 2.