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Dad, you can’t separate us. We’re twins .”
    “You’re also boy and girl,” Dad reminded her. “You’re not little kids anymore. You need your own rooms. Stop acting like it’s the end of the world. He’s not moving to Timbuktu. He’s moving a couple feet down the hall. You can visit each other all you want.”
    Amazingly, my sister didn’t say another word. She just stared bug-eyed off into space. She was in shock. Then she dropped her fork to the floor and left the table.
    So next day we moved—Dad and I, that is. Lily sat in the doorway and made us step over her the whole time.
    That was four days ago. For four days Lily glared and grumped and slumped. Then yesterdaymorning she barges into my new room and shakes me awake and says, “Let’s ride.”
    So we rode our bikes.
    And we went to the creek to hunt stones for my collection.
    We went to the comic shop.
    And we went to Little Train That Could, the model railroad shop, so Lily could stare at an American Flyer blue-and-silver diesel engine that she says is just like the California Zephyr dream train that streaks through us once a year on our birthday night.
    And we checked in with Mom and Dad twice at the house they’re working on down the street. Nobody is living in it. It’s what builders call a handyman special. That means it’s cheap because it needs a lot of fixing, which is where Mom and Dad come in. Because it’s so close and because we check in, we’re allowed to stay at our house by ourselves this summer.
    And we tried to play hide-and-seek, but we still can’t because we always know where the other is hiding.
    And Lily tried to teach me to burp on command.
    That’s what we were doing when a funny thing happened.

Lily
    T here was nothing funny about it. As I was demonstrating a simple beginner’s burp, the doorbell rang. We ran for it but nobody was there. But something was. On the doormat. A stone. A blue stone. Jake of course was impressed. “Blue,” he said. “Cool.” He took it to our—ex- cuse me, his —room and put it in the new box Mom made for his collection.
    Me, I just had a bad feeling. I tried to be happy for him. I know how much he loves cool stones. But the bad feeling stuck. And got badder, because in the next couple days two more stones showed up: a pink one and a gold one.
    I told him, “That’s not real gold. It’s fool’s gold. It’s fake.”
    He shrugged. “I know.”
    I told him, “These don’t count. They’re stuff you buy at a hobby place or a museum. You should just have stones you find yourself. That’s a real collection.”
    He didn’t even hear me. He just ran upstairs pumping his fist: “Yes!”
    No stone came yesterday, but my bad feeling got a name. Jake and I were out riding our bikes when we ran into Bump Stubbins and his gang. Not long ago Bump dug up two other nitwits from under a rotting log, and now the three of them ride around together and call themselves the Death Rays. As we were cruising past them, Bump called out, “Hey, Jake! D’juh like the stones?”
    Jake shot a look at Bump, all surprised. It had never occurred to him this was where the stones came from. My brother can be a real moron sometimes. I picked up speed. “C’mon,” I said.
    I thought Jake was going to do it right, but when we were half a block past them he looked back and called, “Yeah! Thanks!”
    Last night I got out the cards to play poker, but Jake didn’t want to. Not even when I promised I wouldn’t cheat. He just kept making goo-goo eyesat the new stones. He’s already making plans for a bigger collection box. “How many more do you think I’ll get?” he said. “As many as it takes to make you kiss him,” I said. His face got all frowny. He just didn’t get it.
    “Jake,” I said, “why do you think he’s giving you stones? Because he’s trying to suck up to you. He hates me because I beat him up and struck him out, so he’s trying to take you away.”
    “Away from what?” he