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suggested she try being queen for the day.
    She took the necklace from me and fastened it around her neck. “What do I do?”
    I laughed. “Come on, you’ve watched me do it about a thousand times. You know what to do by now. Close your eyes, relax, and clear your mind. Let’s see if it works.”
    We spent about an hour trying to turn Izzy invisible. She tried the thing with the cars zooming over the horizon. She tried another one her mom had taught her for falling asleep — imagining fluffy clouds gliding across a big blue sky. She even tried counting sheep and turning her mind into a huge meadow. Nothing worked. Nothing even came close.
    “Maybe you just haven’t gotten the hang of it yet,” I suggested as Izzy unclasped the necklace and took it off.
    She shook her head. “My mind was as blank as that time the substitute teacher asked me the square root of 729. It couldn’t have been any more empty if I’d been knocked unconscious.” She handed me the necklace. “Whatever it is about this necklace and turning invisible, it only works for you.”
    I put the necklace back on, fastened it behind my neck, and slipped it under my clothes, out of sight, close to my skin.
    “Where did it come from?” Izzy asked.
    Which was when I realized I’d been avoiding thinking about that question. Nancy. She’d bought me the necklace.
    And then I thought about the other thing I’d been avoiding thinking about. The conversation I’d overheard between Nancy and Mom.
    Did Nancy know what the necklace could do? Was that possible? Surely Nancy would never spring something like that on me. Would she?

    Several hours after Izzy had left, nearly bedtime, I left Mom and Dad watching
Supercook: The Final
and headed into the kitchen to make some hot chocolate. While I waited for the kettle to boil, I sat down and tried to put my thoughts into some sort of order.
    My necklace enabled me to turn invisible. Nancy had given it to me. And then she had acted a bit strangely, asking my mom how I was and if I liked the gift. Was she just asking out of interest? I mean, surely it would be normal to ask if I liked a present she’d bought. Was it possible that she knew what it did? And how could I find out?
    Well, obviously, I could ask her.
Hey, Nancy, don’t suppose you know that the necklace you gave me has made me a superhuman freak who turns invisible, do you?
No, that wouldn’t work. If she didn’t know anything about it, her next conversation with Mom would probably include a discussion of the quickest way to get my head examined. And if she
did
know . . . Well, that thought freaked me out so much that I wasn’t prepared to go there. Not yet. I needed more information first. But how to get it?
    I went to get some milk for my cocoa. And that was when I spotted the magnetic reminder on the fridge. Tomorrow was the town’s monthly recycling day. I suddenly had a thought.
    The necklace had come wrapped up in some purple tissue paper stuck down with a label. I couldn’t remember exactly what the label had said, but I knew it had writing on it, and I was pretty sure it was the name and address of the shop it had come from. If I could find that, perhaps I could track down where the necklace had come from without having to confront Nancy. And, given that a month’s worth of our discarded paper was going to be taken away in the morning, tonight would be my only chance.
    I could hear the
Supercook
closing theme song in the family room. Then Mom came into the kitchen. “All right, that’s it. I’m calling it a night,” she said, giving me a kiss.
    “I’ll be up in a minute,” Dad replied as Mom headed up to their bedroom.
    One down. Dad would probably spend another ten minutes channel surfing. He wouldn’t be far behind her.
    I’d go up to my own room, give them half an hour to get into bed and nod off, then all I had to do was go downstairs, sneak outside, rummage through a month’s worth of recycling, find a tiny label on a