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bent into focus inches from Clare’s own.
    “Oh shit …” Clare shook her head and glanced around the restoration room. The overhead neons seemed painfully bright after the darkness by the riverbank. She was dizzy and felt as though she were still a bit transparent. She was also, she noticed, shaking like a leaf.
    “Clare?” Her aunt’s voice floated over to her from behind a row of metal shelving—that is, if something that stern and prickly could float. “You aren’t touching anything, are you?”
    With an almost audible twang Mall Cop’s steely gaze snapped over to where the two girls stood. Al composed herself enough to give him a bored “as-if-we’d-touch-that-dusty-old-stuff” glare. Satisfied, he went back to his recruiting-poster stance, eyes empty of all emotion except perhaps a wistful longing for mirrored sunglasses to complete the look.
    “ Gawd , no, Mags,” Clare replied, trying to clamp down on the warble in her voice. “There’s history cooties all over that stuff.”
    “That’s my darling angel.” Maggie’s voice dripped weary sarcasm.
    Clare heaved a sigh of relief and turned back to Al.
    “‘Oh shit …’?” Al parroted Clare’s sentiment of moments before. “ Where did you just go? And how did you do that? And what exactly is going on? Clare?”
    Clare put a hand to her head, feeling shaky.
    “Clare?”
    “Look—can we just shelve the ‘Allie McAllister, Girl Investigative Journalist’ thing for a second?” she hissed.
    Al’s mouth snapped shut, a hurt expression clouding her eyes.
    “Sorry. I’m sorry.” Clare took a deep breath. “Mags?” she called. “Going to the cafeteria …”
    “All right, luv,” Maggie called back. “If you’re not there when I’m done, I will have to murder you.”
    “Deal. Bye.” Clare grabbed Al by the wrist and they bolted from the room.
    “Why are we going to the cafeteria?” Al asked as they ran.
    “To get away from Officer Friendly and the Brainiac Twins,” Clare said over her shoulder without slowing down. For some reason, she found that running just at that moment made her feel better. Her sneakered feet pounded down the echoing corridors, Al following noiselessly in her wake.
    AL BLINKED . For the first time in what was probably five minutes. Give or take. Since Clare had started talking, really. She blinked again. “Okay.” Her voice was quiet. Calm. “I give. Tell me where the hidden camera is. And how you did the disappearing thing. I get it. I’ve been punk’d. Very good. Very funny. Rich.”
    Clare’s tone was just as quiet. Just as calm. “Al? I understand that this a little weird. And more than a little out of character for me.” She leaned forward over the table, clasping her hands in front of her, her stare boring into Al. “I also just experienced what I can only describe as a paranormal phenomenon to which you were the sole witness, and I’m pretty sure that if you don’t stick with me on this one I’m gonna start screaming like a freak any second now. Okay ?” Clare smiled tightly and tilted her head, waiting.
    “Um.”
    “Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “Okay.” It was Clare’s turn to blink. “Seriously?”
    “Yes.” Al nodded solemnly. “Okay. I believe you. Tell me again what happened and we’ll figure this out, Clare. Together.”
    The tension flowed from Clare’s shoulders.
    “You’re a peach, Al,” Clare gasped with relief. “What would I do without you?”
    Al didn’t bother to answer. Of course, neither of them could imagine a situation in which that circumstance would ever arise. Clare and Al had been inseparable almost since the day they’d met, the only two new kids in the entire third grade of an upper-crust private school in Toronto’s swanky Rosedale neighbourhood that didn’t exactly have a tradition of rolling out the welcome mat for misfits and newcomers. After only a week the girls had decided—most solemnly—to pledge eternal loyalty to each other as blood