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that box wrong. I almost never keep plastic dishes in my room.” I closed the packing box. “Hardly ever, as a matter of fact.” I bit my bottom lip. What a stupid thing to say. I never kept dishes in my room at all.
    “Whatever. Do you wear contacts?” she asked. “I started wearing mine when I was nine. I couldn't see a thing in third grade. I never could find my classroom. Contacts saved my life.” She fluttered her eyelashes at me. Then she wiped her hands on her jeans and popped one of her lenses out.
    “See?” she said. She held the lens in the palm of her hand. “They're so tiny that I forget about them.”
    “I have allergies. Contacts would make my eyes itch. Besides, uh, I don't even wear glasses.” There was something about this girl that made me say the dumbest things. I'd never been this self-conscious. But Hannah Wilson was making me nervous big-time.
    “Murray wears contacts,” she said. “His are tinted blue, but I didn't want tinted ones.” She spit on her finger and put the contact back in her eye. “They make your eyes look fake, don't you think?” I thought about Sam and his crazy glasses with the bouncing eyeballs. Now, that was what I called fake.
    “Murray?” I prompted. She had not stopped talking. I couldn't keep up with her. She moved from one subject to another faster than Gram's puppets.
    “Your next-door neighbor and my best friend in the whole world. I'll bring him over later.” She walked to the kitchen window and pointed to a big tree in our backyard.
    “See that pecan tree?” she said. I looked out the window and followed her pointing finger. “That's Murray's tree house. We used to have a club up there. I was president. But we don't have meetings there anymore now that we're older. We still hang out there. Maybe we'll let you come sometime.” She paused. “Well, I guess you can come since the tree house is in your yard. But Murray's dad built it.”
    “I might be too busy to climb trees,” I said. I didn't know why I said that. I wanted to make friends and I was coming off like a dope. “Then again, maybe I will,” I said quickly.
    “Whatever.” She shrugged. “Did you know the Millers?” she asked.
    “No. Who are they?”
    “The family that lived here before you.” She twirled a strand of red hair around her finger. “This house needed so many repairs, the Millers gave up and moved to Buffalo Gulch. Mr. Miller tried to fix things up, but after he fell through the roof twice, he put it on the market. He told my dad that the first fool that made an offer, he'd take it no matter what.” Hannah grinned. “And the next thing we knew, you guys were moving in.”
    “My dad's no fool,” I said firmly. “He can fix anything. He's already started on the roof. He loved this old house when he was a kid. He always wanted to live in it. That's why he bought it. It's a fixer-upper.”
    “That's a good way of putting it,” she said with a giggle.
    “Well, it won't take long to restore it,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “My dad's a regular at Home Depot.”
    Then Hannah's mom called for her. Hannah bounced on her feet. “Gotta go. But one more thing. What does Ricky Raccoon Productions mean?”
    “How do you know about that?” I asked, surprised. She pointed to my shirt. I had forgotten I was wearing it. “I had a job working for my grandmother in Seattle,” I explained.
    “Directing?” she asked.
    I didn't know whether she'd laugh if I told her about the puppets. Good thing I'd left Waldo in my room.
    “I, uh, helped her move equipment.”
    She shrugged. “Whatever.” Before I realized it, she was out the door.
    Hannah had whirled in and out so fast, I felt like I had been hit by a Texas tornado. But at least I had learned a little something about my new school.
    I speed-dialed Sam's number. The answering machine picked up.
    “Hey, Sam,” I said, trying to talk fast. I didn't want to use up all my minutes already. “You're never