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wasn’t.”
    Like a ghost, thought Nella. Though there were no such things.
    Angela picked up Bobby’s hat and stuck her hand inside. She made it talk like a puppet. “Sometimes I wish he’d go back in the army again!” said the hat. Angela immediately yanked it off. “No I don’t! I take that back!”
    Angela’s father was a soldier, so that meant he was good and brave.
    Angela’s father scared his kids and made his wife cry, so that meant he was bad and cruel.
    Just because you did one right thing, did it mean you were good?
    And if that was true, did doing one wrong thing mean you were bad?
    Third grade was when Nella started asking questions like that. At school, her teachers still knew all the answers. But at night, in bed, Nella got confused. It was like another girl had come to live inside her. All day this girl curled up and slept, but at night she sighed and woke up. She stood on her toes and stretched her arms. This girl was greedy. She wanted so many things. Forest Fire Fiona, but other things too. Some things, she didn’t even know their names. That didn’t stop this girl from wanting them. She stretched, she strained, she reached. It was like she wantedto leap free of gravity, leap clean off the ground!
    Nella didn’t tell anyone, not even Angela, about this.
    (Later, Nella would wonder if that girl was to blame for her clumsiness. Clem said it was invisible gnomes that made her trip seventeen times a day. But maybe it was that other, restless girl who’d woken up inside her.)
    The Disaster Doll owners formed a club. If you didn’t have a doll, you weren’t allowed. Nella told Angela this was against the law. It was a free country. Angela put the tip of her braid between her teeth, a habit that was starting to get on Nella’s nerves.
    One afternoon as Anthony walked them home, Angela suddenly began to cry.
    “I asked Victoria to see her doll, and she said my family was so weird I’d contaminate it.”
    Anthony froze. His face became a thundercloud.
    “And she said Nella . . .” Angela bit her lip.
    “Me?” Nella stood still. A small shock zapped her, head to toe. “Did she bad-mouth my father?”
    What in the world made her say that? Everyone liked Dad. At church or the store or the social club, they made jokes like “This guy? He’s the last one to let you down!” and “Where he works? People are dying to get in!” Dad would pretend it was funny, like he hadn’t heard it a million times.
    Still. Sometimes a ripple went out around him. Sometimes she caught people flashing him second looks that made her uneasy. Every now and then, Mom hustled her past a conversation with a we-don’t-do-gossip face.
    (This was the year Nella realized their neighborhood was prime territory for a disastrous landslide. Anthony reassured her they were safe. If only he’d been right.)
    “Those girls are the real natural disasters.” Anthony rubbed the scar over his eye. He made his voice light, though his face was still dark with anger. “Who wants to go to Franny’s?”
    He paid for the doughnuts with quarters and dimes. He and Angela never had any money. So it was a surprise when, the next day after school, he told them he was headed down to Value Variety, and they could come if they wanted.
    It was October. The day was warm but Anthony wore a bulky jacket. Valentine-red leaves drifted at their feet. In her head Nella repeated the names of the six daughters she and Anthony would have someday: Melissa, Miranda, Marybeth, Martina, Mia, and baby Molly.
    “Wait out here,” he said when they got to the store. “Do not come in no matter what.”
    This was the second surprise.
    Nella and Angela stood close together, feeling nervous.Back then, they were forbidden to come down here by themselves. When Nella’s family drove through with Nonni, she made them roll up their windows and lock their doors while she clutched her purse tight in her lap. Danger lurked on every corner, according to Nonni, though to