Liz rolled her eyes and justsaid, "Don't fall asleep by a pool in Alabama," as if she should haveknown better— which she totally shouldhave. I mean, we're all technically geniuses and everything, but at age nine,Liz had the highest score on the third-grade achievement tests ever. Thegovernment keeps track of that kind of thing, so the summer before seventhgrade, her parents got a visit from some big guys in dark suits and threemonths later, Liz was a Gallagher Girl— just not thekill-a-man-with-her-bare-hands variety. If I'm ever on a mission, I want Bexbeside me and Liz far, far away, with about a dozen computers and achessboard—a fact I couldn't help but remember when Liz tried to fling hersuitcase onto the bed, but missed and ended up knocking over a bookcase,demolishing my stereo and flattening a perfectly-scaled replica of DNA that I'dmade out of papier-mâché in eighth grade.

"Oopsy daisy," Lizsaid, throwing her hand to her mouth.

Sure, she knows cuss words infourteen different languages, but when faced with a minor catastrophe, Liz saysoopsy daisy. At that point I didn't care how sunburned she was—I had to hug my friend.

At six thirty exactly, we werein our uniforms, sliding our hands over the smooth mahogany banisters, anddescending down the staircases that spiral gracefully to the foyer floor.Everyone was laughing (turns out my knitting needle story was a big hit), butLiz and I kept looking toward the door in the center of the atrium below.

"Maybe there was troublewith the plane?" Liz whispered. "Or customs? Or … I'm sure she's justlate."

I nodded and continuedglancing down at the foyer as if, on cue, Bex was going to burst through thedoors. But they stayed closed, and Liz's voice got squeakier as she asked,"Did you hear from her? I didn't hear from her. Why didn't we hear fromher?"

Well, I would have beensurprised if we had heard from her, to tell you the truth. As soon asBex had told us that both her mom and her dad were taking a leave of absence tospend the summer with her, I knew she wasn't going to be much of a pen pal.Leave it to Liz to come to a completely different conclusion.