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shopping. Then it got to be time to go home, and the two trudged carefully back through the field. They were about to head up the hill that would take them back into the neighborhood, back into the ordinary world, when Hazel stopped.
    “What is it?” asked Jack.
    “I don’t know,” said Hazel. She turned back and regarded the decaying shell of the house for a moment. “I just wanted to look at it again.” Then she shrugged and turned around to head back home.

    When Hazel walked into her house, she found herself feeling scratchy and thick. As she wiped her feet in the vestibule, she heard her mom on the phone. Her voice sounded like it had no air in it, so Hazel knew who she was talking to. Hazel quietly got her boots and jacket off as she heard her mother’s voice say, “. . . she just got in. Do you want to—” and then, a few moments later, her good-bye. Hazel lined up her boots against the wall and tucked her mittens and hat into her jacket.
    “Did you have fun sledding?” her mom asked as she came in.
    “Yeah,” said Hazel, hanging her jacket in the front closet.
    “Hey, listen. Elizabeth Briggs called. Adelaide was hoping you might come over on Saturday morning.”
    “I have plans,” Hazel said.
    Her mother leaned back in her chair and looked at Hazel. “I already accepted,” she said. “Hazel, honey, it’s not wrong to make other friends. You’d still be a wonderful friend to Jack.”
    Hazel rubbed the floor with her stockinged foot. “Whatever,” she muttered, and went into her room and closed the door to go read for the rest of the night. Some things you just couldn’t fight against.

    When Hazel woke up the next morning, she found the scratchy feeling had not gone away. It didn’t help when she looked out of her window to find her street had been plowed perfectly. There was no snow day today.
    Her mom was cranky at breakfast and gave Hazel a talking-to about snow shoveling and maturity and accepting responsibility. And Hazel could not explain that she had forgotten, that there was Jack and soul-sucking villains, and sometimes you are too scratchy to remember the things you are supposed to do, even if you do feel really bad about it later.
    It was snowing when she went to the bus stop, the sort of snow that feels like sharp little ice pellets on your skin. They hurt Hazel’s face. And Jack wasn’t there, and she hated when he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. It was terrible when people weren’t at the places they were supposed to be. Jack didn’t get to the bus stop until just as they were loading, and then he was immediately called over by Tyler and Hazel was left to sit by herself and she’d forgotten her book.
    She walked into school behind everyone and stopped in the bathroom, but still when she peered into Mr. Williams’s classroom window Jack wasn’t sitting down yet, and his empty desk nudged at her like something important that’s just out of the reach of memory. She was thinking about something else in the hallway and didn’t see Bobby taking off his boots and accidentally kicked him in the thigh. Bobby yelped and clutched his leg and told her that in addition to being crazy she was a stupid klutz cow.
    Mrs. Jacobs read announcements that morning. Remember to bang the snow off your boots when you come into school, field trip to the art museum next week and ask your parents if they’ll chaperone, remember no peanuts for the bake sale, and, oh, Mikaela and her dad are going to start a father-daughter book club if anyone’s interested.
    And then, from behind her:
    “Wow, Hazy, that sounds like fun. Too bad your dad isn’t around!”
    Hazel whirled around. Bobby was snickering. Mikaela sucked in her breath. Even Tyler shook his head. Bobby rolled his eyes in response.
    Hazel turned back around and focused on a small spot at the front of her desk and did not lift her eyes.
    At recess, Jack was waiting for her again by the big slide, and he looked at Hazel like he had