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gleams except for the curved part in the center, where I imagine the rubbing of my dad’s heel took the shine off. I look into the shiny part and can see some of me in the reflection.
    I put the shoehorn on the plate and then slide it to the center of the floor. Then I make a card that says
    Shoehorn that belonged to Theodore Crumb, dad to Penelope Crumb, and who is Graveyard Dead.

9.
    A t school the next day, Patsy Cline is covered head to toe in pink, just like Vera Bogg. She looks like a big mound of cotton candy that is so sweet and sugary, it makes the teeth want to drop right out of my mouth.
    “What is that?” I ask Patsy, the first chance I get. Which happens to be on the way to recess right after Miss Stunkel makes us take a surprise test on decimal points.
    “What?” she says, like she doesn’t even know what she’s wearing or how I feel about pink. Then she says, “Oh. These are Vera’s. We did an outfit switcheroo.”
    “Why would you do a thing like that?”
    “For fun,” she says, playing with the chain on her FRIENDS FOREVER necklace.
    “I don’t see what’s so fun about it.”
    Patsy Cline says, “Humph,” and then nothing else. We stare at each other for a long time after that. This time, I plant my eyeballs on Marge the caterpillar like there’s nothing else in the world to look at. I stare so long and so hard that Marge starts to wiggle and squirm.
    And just when Marge is about to smile at me and turn into a butterfly, Vera Bogg—wearing Patsy’s blue cowgirl shirt!—taps Patsy on the shoulder from behind. Without taking my eyeballs off Patsy, and without blinking, I put on a face that says, Vera Bogg, You’re In for a Very Long Wait. But then Patsy does something she’s never done before: She stops staring.
    “What are you doing?” I say. “What about our staring contest?”
    She shrugs. “You win, I guess.”
    Vera tugs on Patsy’s arm. “Let’s see who can jump off the swings the farthest.”
    “Patsy Cline Roberta Watson,” I say, grabbing her other arm. “I never win.”
    Patsy pulls free from me and yanks at a strand of hair that’s caught in her necklace. “Okay,” she says to Vera and then asks me if I want to come swinging. But I can only shake my head, because Patsy’s been brainwashed.
    After recess, all my brains can think about is what is happening to Patsy Cline. Even though her desk is in the next row, she seems miles away. Like she’s in Alaska. Because Vera Bogg kidnapped her, wrapped her up in a pink sleeping bag, put her on a pink airplane, and took her there. And I don’t know how to get her back.
    That’s what my brains are thinking about when the last bell rings and Miss Stunkel says in front of everybody, “Penelope Crumb, remember you need to stay after today.”
    Good gravy. I forgot all about our meeting with Miss Stunkel to talk about me being odd.
    Miss Stunkel strokes her Wednesday lizard pin and puts a smile on her face that says You Didn’t Think I’d Forget, Did You?
    While Patsy Cline and Vera Bogg pack up their book bags to go home, they whisper and nod and give each other the kind of looks that best friends do. The kind that Patsy and me used to do.
    After everybody leaves and it’s just me and Miss Stunkel left alone together, I keep my head real close to my drawing pad and put on a face that says, Do Not Disturb: Very Serious Business in Progress, so Miss Stunkel won’t try to talk to me.
    But it doesn’t work, because Miss Stunkel tells me to make myself useful and go outside and bang the chalk dust out of the erasers while we wait for my mom. I take a long time doing this and don’t go back inside until I see my mom in the hallway.
    I wait outside the door to Miss Stunkel’s classroom and am real quiet just in case Mom and Miss Stunkel decide they are going to talk about me. But all I can hear is Miss Stunkel saying something nice about my mom’s shirt and then my mom says something I can’t hear and then Miss Stunkel