Nina had been that girl. She lost herself, remembering. Two months ago, in the hallway at Harlow School, she'd scooped up a folded-over page that other girls had walked right past. She'd held the cream-colored, heavy-weight paper in her hand for a long moment, daydreaming about what it might be. She'd known it was probably nothing interesting, nothing that concerned her: a notice about electric rates, maybe, or a government edict about the size of spoons in the school kitchen. But as long as she didn't open it, she could imagine it was something exciting — like Cinderella's invitation to the prince's ball, perhaps. And since she was the one who'd picked it up…

The suspense had been too much. Nina had slid her fin-ger between the edges of paper, breaking the seal. Carefully she'd unfolded the page and read:

To all Harlow girls who are concerned about shadows:

Please join the like-minded students of Hendricks School for Boys for a meeting at 8 P.M… April 16, halfway into the woods between our schools.

Nina had never heard of Hendricks School. She had never been in the woods — any woods. Except for the day she came to the school, she'd never been outdoors at all. She was a little worried about the word "shadows." Did it mean what she thought it meant? Was this dangerous?

But Nina didn't really care. She knew instantly that she was going to that meeting. She would have gone if the note had said, "To all Harlow girls who are concerned about hammers." Or "fruit flies." Or "pencils." Or "prehistoric civilizations' development of canals and aqueducts" — the subject she'd just ignored in her last class. Nina felt like she'd been waiting her entire thirteen years to receive this invitation.