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actress? She played Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
?” Can he seriously not know who she is?
    “Oh,
her
. That’s pretty old school.”
    “She made a lot of movies,” I say. “Most of them musical. Anyway, that was ‘Mission: Judy!’ And one summer we took the swept-up old hair from the Hair Emporium and left handfuls of it in parks around town so that birds could make nests with it. Then we spent the rest of the summer hunting for nests with human hair in them. We used these old binoculars someone left on the side of the road. They worked fine, but the strap was broken and one of the lenses was cracked.”
    “That’s totally gross and fascinating,” Doug says.
    “You’d better get used to having dead hair around if you’re going to live with us,” I say.
    “I’ll manage. Did you find any nests?”
    “We found two. It was hard to know for sure if the hair was
our
hair, but if we saw a nest with hair woven into it we just claimed it as our own.”
    “That seems fair. Was this last year?”
    “No, ‘Mission: Birdnest’ was a while ago. Last year we made it our mission to bike down every street in town.”
    “How long did that take you?”
    “Not very long. Halfway through, Benji got the idea that we should pose with every street sign, but we didn’t want to go back and get pictures of the streets we’d already been to, so we’re missing a bunch.”
    I leave out the part about how we also tried not to be seen, like spies, which meant a lot of ducking behind cars and hiding behind bushes. It seems kind of stupid now, but it made us laugh really hard then.
    “As a fitness professional, I approve of your cycling adventures.”
    “Benji made a scrapbook. It’s called ‘Mission: Biketown.’ We wrote notes in it and everything. He’d probably show itto you if you asked.”
    “I’d love to take a look-see, as long as you don’t mind. Sounds like these missions are a private Benji and Clarissa operation.”
    Talking about the missions makes me feel a little sad. Summer started weeks ago, and neither of us has so much as mentioned this year’s mission. We’ve done lots of stuff together, like barbeques, movies, even a few bike rides, but it feels different, less special. For one thing, there’s almost always someone else with us: Mattie or Charity or some of Benji’s drama friends. Doug is right; the missions were always something just the two of us did. Maybe we’ve grown out of them.
    The thought makes my heart ache, like it’s grown too big for its space in my chest.

AN EARLY DAY
    The Hair Emporium opens at nine every morning, but sometimes Mom will make an exception. It’s not unusual to hear voices from the salon as early as eight, or sometimes seven-thirty, but it is unusual when one of those voices is Benji’s. In fact, when I stumble to the bathroom at 8:05 in the morning, I’m not even sure that it’s him I hear giggling away with my mother in the basement. I stand outside the bathroom door, straining to make out their voices.
    I’d intended to go back to bed and sleep for at least another hour, but now my curiosity is waking me up, like a big cup of coffee — which, despite my status as a fourteen-year-old young adult about to enter high school, I am still not allowed to drink.
    I manage to make it through the kitchen and down the stairs to the salon without tripping over my clumsy, sleepy feet. Sure enough, there’s Benji sitting in one of the big red leather chairs, flowered cape Velcroed around his neck, Mom running her little black comb through his wet hair, snipping away.
    “Benji? What are you doing here?”
    Mom smiles, but Benji looks guilty, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
    “Good morning to you, too, Clarissa,” Mom says. She is a morning person and doesn’t understand how it can take some people (like me, for example) a little more time to warm up to the idea of being awake. She pats the emptychair next to her. Obediently, I head over, pausing