Sunny frowned. She’d thought she and Chichi were friends, sort of. “Why’s that?”

“Because you’re his in-school friend and I’m his out-ofschool friend.”

Sunny laughed and shook her head. “I’m not his girlfriend.”

“Oh, neither am I. We’re just friends.”

“Okay,” Sunny said, frowning. “Uh… well, then… well, okay.”

“I don’t know much about you yet. Not enough to say we’re friends,” Chichi said. She cocked her head. “But I can tell there’s more to you. I just know it.”

“What do you mean, more?”

Chichi smiled mysteriously. “People say stuff about people like you. That you’re all ghost, or a half and half, one foot in this world and one foot in another.” She paused. “That you can… see things.”

Sunny rolled her eyes. Not this again, she thought. So cliché. Everyone thinks the old old lady, the hunchback, the crazy man, and the albino have magical evil powers. “Whatever,” she grumbled. She didn’t want to think about the candle.

Chichi laughed. “You’re right, those are silly stereotypes about albinos. But in your case, I think there’s something to it.” She paused, as if about to say something very important. “You know, Orlu can take things apart-undo bad things.”

Sunny frowned. “I see him messing around all the time, fixing radios and stuff like that. So?”

“So it’s not what you think.”

“What’s your point, Chichi?”

“Well, if you’re going to be Orlu’s friend, you should know the real story.”

They were standing by the side of the road. A car zoomed by, leaving them in a cloud of red dust. “Tell me something secret about yourself,” Chichi suddenly said. “That will seal our friendship, I think.”

“You tell me something about yourself first,” Sunny said, playing along. This was one weird game.

Chichi frowned and bit her lip again. “Hey, do you have to go home right now?”

Sunny considered. Her homework could wait a little while. She called her mother on her cell phone and told her she was with Chichi. After a long pause, her mother gave her an hour if Sunny promised to finish her homework as soon as she got home.