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strawberry toppings. The menu every Friday featured "Make-Your-Own Sundaes." Even the students who brought their lunches from home delighted in
this
sort of institutionalized food. Dan joined them and pressed his tray gently into Miranda's back.
    "Hey, can you come over for dinner tonight?" His voice was low in her ear.
    "Well, what are you guys having?"
    "What way is that to respond to a dinner invitation?" Dan cried indignantly. "I'm doing the cooking. And you know what that means, don't you?"
    "Hamburgers and potato chips."
    "O ye of little faith! I've been practicing my culinary arts, I'll have you know. It's going to be a real feast. Say that you'll come."
    "I'll come." She grinned at him, glad the look of censure that had been in his eyes since yesterday when she'd lied to the principal's secretary was gone. "Well, I'll have to ask, but I'm sure it'll be fine with my parents."
    Dan beamed back at her and she moved on, selecting the caramel topping to go on top of her vanilla and strawberry ice cream, and then spooning on chopped nuts and chocolate chips. A long-faced cafeteria worker squirted a gob of whipped cream onto Miranda's creation. A fleck of cream flew up onto Miranda's cheek.
    "Oh, well," joked Miranda over her shoulder to Dan, wiping the cream off. "I
try
to ignore all the signs that we're not in a three-star restaurant, but sometimes it's hard."
    "More like negative three," he rejoined. "But wait till tonight. It'll be five stars for me!"
    Ahead of them in line, Miranda caught a flash of pale hair. She craned her neck. "Look, Dan—there's Abby."
    "So? Don't start, Mandy."
    Abby stood in line to pay. Unlike the trays of all the other students, hers held only a single carton of milk. Miranda watched as Abby glanced around furtively and then quickly elbowed the girl in front of her. The girl nearly dropped her tray and she spilled her cup of juice into her sundae.
    "Hey!" cried the girl, whirling around. She mopped at her sodden blouse with a paper napkin. "Look what you've done!"
    "Don't worry, honey." The woman with the whipped cream can hurried to the rescue with a towel. "We'll have you cleaned up in no time at all. Your boyfriend will never notice the spots."
    "Can I have a new sundae? And another juice?" whined the girl. "It wasn't
my
fault it got spilled."
    "Don't you worry. Just hold still a minute."
    This scene was causing some commotion in the line as people gathered around the disgruntled, wet girl. But Miranda kept her eyes on Abby, who calmly grabbed several cellophane-wrapped sandwiches and a bag of corn chips off the counter and dropped them swiftly into her beaded bag. "Excuse me, excuse me," Abby said, stepping around the cleanup crew on her way to the cash register. "Here, this is for the milk." She handed the cashier some change.
    "Thanks," murmured the cashier absently, hunched over a magazine.
    "Did you see that?" Miranda whispered.
    "I sure did." Dan's voice was grim.
    "She just slid the stuff into her bag, cool as anything." Susannah sounded impressed.
    "She's a thief. I knew it already, but now we have proof."
    "Ssh, Mandy. Not so loud. Let's get our stuff and go talk to her."
    They moved ahead to the cashier. "I can't believe anyone would want to steal junk from this place," said Susannah.
    But when they had paid for their sundaes and scouted around the large room, there was no sign of Abby at all.
    "She's pretty quick with the disappearing act." Miranda led the way to an empty table.
    "Well, it's really none of our business, I guess," said Susannah.
    "Yeah," agreed Dan. "But she'll get in big trouble one of these days if she doesn't stop it."
    Miranda poked unhappily at her ice cream. Why did she have the feeling that Abby was already in big trouble?

    At home after school, Miranda sank onto her bed. Friday at last. The week had seemed like, forever. A week ago she had never even heard of Abby Chandler. And yet now the girl was like a blister on Miranda's heel, an irritation