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pretend dirty look.
    Abby scraped the bottom of her yogurt cup with her spoon and looked nonplussed. “We both know you have another package in your bag, and five hundred more at home,” she replied smoothly.
    Lena smirked, feeling normal for the first time that day. “Thank you, Jake!” she cried.
    The girls finished their treats in silence, climbed back on their bikes, and rode the rest of the way down Main Street. Lena struggled to keep a hold on her easy mood, but could feel it slipping away.
    Just before rounding the corner onto Fourth, Abby screeched to a halt, leaving black tire marks on the cement.
    â€œA little warning might be nice!” Lena yelped, quickly steering to the left to avoid a crash. Without replying, Abby propped her bike next to a building and slipped inside.
    â€œThe girl’s gone loco,” Lena said to herself. She shook her head when she saw where Abby wasgoing, then locked the bikes and followed her friend into the art gallery. “Didn’t I tell her I don’t want to enter the photo contest?” she complained to no one in particular.
    The gallery was cool and quiet inside, with high ceilings and exposed beams. The floorboards creaked as Lena caught up to her friend in the back of the big, open room. Abby was standing in front of a wall hung with a long row of pictures.
    â€œWhat gives?” Lena asked, feeling a little grumpy about her friend’s unannounced stop.
    â€œI just felt like stopping,” Abby said. “Here, I got this for you.” She shoved an entry form into Lena’s hand and turned her attention back to the wall of photos. “These are all the contest winners.”
    Lena knew from experience (and from watching her best friend drive hard bargains) that Abby didn’t take no for an answer. Most of the time this was totally fine, and even entertaining. But when Abby’s pushiness was directed
at
her, it could be totally annoying. She crumpled the form into a tight ball and glanced up at the winning images in spite of herself. Within five seconds she was hooked.
    The shots varied widely — there were images ofeverything from a super-close-up of a happy dog’s tongue to a dewy meadow at sunrise, to a weirdly disturbing image of a place setting missing its spoon.
    Every picture told a story, which was exactly what Lena loved about photographs. She loved how a moment captured in the blink of the shutter could say so much more than seemed possible.
    Lena and Abby lingered over the back wall. All of the shots were great. But time and again Lena kept coming back to one picture — the black-and-white silverware shot. Simple as it was, it was oddly captivating. It looked like it had been taken at a diner — possibly even Saywell’s. Lena liked the way the curved coffee stain marked the spot where the spoon should have been. It had a lonely quality.
    â€œCheck it out,” Abby said, pointing at two placards beneath the photos. “Some guy named Robbie Henson won twice in a row.”
    Sure enough, the photos were credited with the same name. One was a shot of three sets of toes dangling off a dock just above the water — a man, woman, and child obviously enjoying summer. The other was the napkin-coffee-stain image Lena had just been staring at.
    â€œThe images are so different,” Abby said thoughtfully. “You’d never guess they were taken by the same person.”
    Lena discreetly uncrumpled the entry form. She flattened it and pushed it into her messenger bag. It was amazing how one picture could completely change the way you saw things.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    The girls stood silently in front of the photos for several minutes. “Just think,” Abby said, turning toward Lena. “Your name could be up here, too!”
    Lena rolled her eyes. Thinking about entering was one thing. Planning on winning was quite another. “Let’s just take it one step at a time,” she