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bulky karate uniform underneath made the task more difficult than usual. Mikey adjusted his belt. He had been so proud when he earned the yellow stripe on his white belt. Meredith was glad that her mother had found a positive and healthy way for Mikey to interact with other kids, especially because the other students in the class seemed to accept him. Too bad her mother couldn’t help Meredith with that, too, but there were less than one hundred school days left, and Meredith figured she could hang on until Syracuse. She’d fallen in love with the idea of attending Syracuse after sitting through hours of the school’s athletic games on television with her dad.
    Some of the karate moms were reading magazines.
    Meredith couldn’t concentrate when all the yelling started. She was never ready for that first spirit yell from the fifteen or so students. Their high-pitched voices almost tore her ears off, but she couldn’t leave because Mikey would get panicky if he didn’t see her. In fact, she loved when he looked her way and smiled. She always flashed him a thumbs-up, which he of course, returned. Sometimes they would keep flashing hand gestures, like the peace sign or the hang loose sign, until they were both giggling. One time she pretended to pick her nose and flick the imaginary booger at him. They had both cracked up. This, of course, garnered a gentle reprimand to Mikey from the instructor and amused smiles from the karate moms.
    The instructor worked the students through their warm-up moves. A collective spirit yell accompanied each move. Meredith cringed and readied herself for forty-five minutes of not-so-quiet torture.
    “Am I stinky?” Mikey put his armpit in Meredith’s face after his class was dismissed.
    She playfully swatted him away and held her nose. “Phew. You are stinky!” She scrunched up her nose and made a distasteful noise. He was sweaty, but he wasn’t really stinky. He still had that innocent smell of youth, that innocent smell that made Meredith fall in love with her little brother in the first place.
    Mikey laughed, obviously pleased with the effect he had on his sister. “Show Daddy.”
    “Where’s your coat?”
    Mikey retrieved his coat from the hook and put it on. Meredith started the zipper for him, and he zipped it up by himself. Winter coats back on, they raced to the truck and this time Meredith wasn’t playing. This time Meredith had something to prove. This time Meredith won.
    “Cheat.”
    Meredith unlocked Mikey’s door. “I did not cheat, Mikey. I won fair and square. You’re just tired from all that karate. Oops, I mean taekwondo.”
    “Yeah. I tired.” He got in the truck and snapped his seatbelt closed.
    As they passed the four-gabled Victorian House on their way home, she noticed the spotty front lawn and the mailbox out front as if it were in a suburban neighborhood. Meredith shook her head. What was such a grand house doing on a busy commercial street? Maybe she and Dani could research the house for their history project. Maybe they could find out who lived there and why the house was empty. Or was it empty? Maybe Dani knew about this side of town since Dani had lived in Whickett all her life. But then again, Dani probably had a project already worked out for them. Meredith decided that she wasn’t even going to suggest the scary house, unless Dani hadn’t come up with anything, and there was very little chance of that.
    When she pulled into their driveway, Mikey ripped off his seatbelt, leaped out of the truck, and bolted toward the house before Meredith had a chance to get the truck turned off. She shouted out her now open driver’s side door. “Hey, who’s the cheater now?”
    “I won. I won.” Mikey did his famous happy dance on the front porch.
    “Oh, c’mon, Mikey. You didn’t even give me a chance.”
    Their father opened the front door. “Are you two going to come in or just argue in the cold?”
    “I won,” Mikey told his father.
    “I