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laughter.
    â€œOnly in principle,” he responded. “I don’t like books as much as the people who carry them about. Come on, then, it’s Friday night. You know you’ve got nothing better to do. I’ll meet you at the corner at seven.” And that settled it. They had a date. A date! Kate wished she could think of something interesting to say.
    â€œDon’t be late, now. Seven sharp,” Hal told her. He stepped forward—was he going to kiss her? Then Kate somehow lost her balance and toppled against the black iron fence that surrounded the front garden. She righted herself just in time to catch another wink and a grin before Hal turned and sauntered back the way they had come, eventually disappearing around the corner.
    Her legs felt like limp spaghetti. He was so good looking! And so much older. And … and she was so dismal. She wished she were like Willow: tall, slim, stylish. But, she sighed, she was only herself. Dumb and dumpy. Dumpty! she christened herself wryly.
    Tonight, she resolved, brushing her wet cheek, she’d be more fun. Boys liked it if you acted cheerful. She had seen the other girls giggling at school, flirting with guys they liked. She practiced a small giggle out loud. It sounded so squeaky that she despaired of it ever impressing Hal. “Can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Gran would say. Sighing, Kate opened the gate, wishing she could just jump in the shower and come out a different person.
    She wondered if Hal had been waiting for her at the station. She knew he didn’t live around here because he always took the tube in the other direction, so he must have been hanging around King’s Cross for some purpose. The thought of him lurking in the shadows gave her an odd feeling. But how else was he to find her? They hardly ever saw each other by chance. A warm rush of pleasure filled her chest and her heart beat faster. He was at least two years older and all the girls at school were crazy about him. But why would he be interested in her? She picked the dirt out from under her thumbnail. Maybe he just had a thing for short, plump redheads. As she stood thinking about how cute he was—his red-gold hair, his broad shoulders—her eye fell on the withered roses that hung their heads against the fence.
    A frost this early in October, she thought, surprised, touching the wrinkled petals. A killing frost , Gran would say. Gran was one of the reasons her father had let Willow come to London in the first place—because she could spend weekends with Gran in Brighton and have the influence of family, as Dad put it. Dad had been pretty protective. And then when he’d died, Gran had thought it best that Kate come to live in London, as well, and Willow had agreed. “Sisters need each other,” Gran had said. “But you must stay with me in Brighton on weekends when you can.”
    Gran had selected the private Camden school—promised Kate that it would give her the education she required to go on in whatever field she wanted. It was expensive. Kate had seen the financial statements on Willow’s desk. But that didn’t make her grateful. She just didn’t care about school. And as for future plans—it was hard enough taking life day by day without trying to think about the years to come. Since the car accident that killed her father, she’d felt like a piece of cotton fluff, whirled this way and that in the wind until eventually … eventually she, too, would vanish. Just as the people she loved had vanished—first her mother and then her father.
    She pushed open the heavy door to the building and stepped inside and, for the third time that day, thought about disappearing and what a relief that would be. It wasn’t fair that her dad had died, and it was more than unfair to find herself stuck with life in this stupid place, going to that stupid school. And now, she had an evening ahead