"I think so," said Kristy. "She doesn't really understand what we're talking about." It was true. Emily Michelle was playing happily with her Tonka truck, totally absorbed in shifting a little pile of pebbles from one area to another.

    "Rrrr . . ." said Emily, making a pretty good truck noise.

    As the afternoon wore on, some of the other kids in Kristy's neighborhood came over to play. Hannie and Linny Papadakis were the first to arrive. They'd brought their little sister, Sari, to play with Emily. They're just about the same age, even though Sari's more advanced in some ways than Emily. Emily is having a hard time learning certain games - maybe because she had a very hard time for the first year or so of her life in Vietnam.

    Hannie (she's seven, and in the same class at school as Karen) and Linny (he's eight, and he's David Michael's best friend) were just as excited about the pet show as everybody else. It was all they could talk about.

    It was the same with Scott and Timmy Hsu, who live down the street, and Max and Amanda Delaney. They all gathered on Kristy's front lawn, and nobody wanted to talk about anything but the pet show.

    Karen and Amanda are friends, even though Amanda can be kind of stuck-up. (Which is why Hannie can't stand her.) Max, who's six, is always trying to be friends with the other kids, but it seems that David Michael and Linny would rather avoid him.

    Scott and Timmy Hsu are good kids, and everybody likes them. In fact, Hannie and Scott are married! (Well, they're pretend mar- tied. Karen just got married, too, to a boy in her class.) Anyway, with all these kids, some of whom like each other and some of whom might be looking for a fight, Kristy thought it would be a good idea to forget the pet show for awhile and organize a game.

    "How about freeze tag?" she yelled over the commotion.