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MORNING A LLISON was in the kitchen when I got down. I knew better than to ask what was going on, or why she was awake. I went straight to the fridge to get the milk for cereal. There was barely a drop in the whole container.
    Without turning to her, I asked, “Did you drink all the milk?”
    “You just assume it was me,” Allison responded.
    I put the milk back in. Dad would want the dribble that was left for his tea. I chose a plum from the fruit drawer and shut the fridge.
    Allison’s crazy cell phone was freaking out on the counter in front of her. She was staring right down at it, her head tepeed on her hands, not answering it.
    A normal phone surrenders after a while and sends the caller to voice mail, but not Allison’s, apparently. It just kept right on going, playing an ABBA tune I knew I’d becondemned to hum the rest of the day.
    “Phone,” I said.
    “You think?” Allison said.
    “Who are you ignoring?”
    “Tyler.”
    “Your boyfriend calls you at eight in the morning and you—”
    “He’s not my boyfriend.”
    “Oh,” I said. News to me. “Okay.”
    The phone stopped playing ABBA. The silence was loud.
    I wasn’t sure if I should comfort Allison, and if so, how to go about it. I’ve known her since she was born, but still. Allison is a porcupine.
    Before I could choose my move, her phone started having a seizure.
    “I broke up with him last night,” Allison explained.
    “ You broke up with him ?”
    “Thanks,” she said. “Nice.”
    “I didn’t mean…” But of course I did. Busted. Change the subject: “That him again?”
    She looked at me like I was an idiot. “No, the mailman.”
    Tyler Moss was the widely acknowledged hottest guy in my grade. He went out with a senior at the beginning of tenth grade, and then fooled around with basically every gorgeous girl in the school, and then fell in love with mysister. I am not particularly looped into the gossip chains, but even I knew everybody was saying Tyler Moss was totally whipped over Allison. They were the IT couple of the end of the school year.
    He was the first guy Allison ever went out with.
    And she broke up with him? I couldn’t believe it. I am a big believer in female power and the desirability of offbeat, intense, different-drummer girls. I totally thought Tyler was lucky and smart to fall for Allison, but, well, nobody would break up with Tyler Moss.
    I am also serious about not prying. It was none of my business what happened between them.
    “What happened?” I asked her accidentally.
    She rolled her eyes. “Nothing.”
    “Did he do something to you?” Allison had never even kissed a boy before, and Tyler Moss was not exactly known for his prudery. “I’ll kill him.”
    Allison burst out laughing. “What happened to my sister, Gandhi reincarnated?”
    “I’ll chop off his private parts and staple them to his butt,” I vowed, shocking us both.
    “Quinn!” Phoebe said from the doorway.
    “Who goes from Zen master straight to Mafia enforcer without passing Go?” Allison asked, smiling a bit in spite of herself.
    “Seriously,” Phoebe agreed. “Holy Quinn.”
    They were both looking at me with renewed respect. Ishook my head. “I didn’t—”
    “So who’s getting stapled?” Phoebe asked, helping herself to a smoothie from the fridge.
    “Ty,” Allison said. “It just wasn’t working out.”
    Phoebe’s face drooped in sympathy. She spread her arms and gathered Allison into them. “Oh, Al,” she murmured.
    I stood there like a stranger waiting for a train.
    Allison’s phone honked twice. We all looked at it. Allison’s eyebrows crunched in the center of her face. She shrugged and picked up the phone. After she said hello she just sat there on a stool, listening, so Phoebe and I turned away to give her some privacy, and also to look toward where Mom’s high heels were clacking across the foyer toward us.
    “The warranty on my vehicle may be expiring,” Allison explained, hanging up as Mom