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music that she was anxious to experiment with. There were a couple of open-mike events coming up at local coffeehouses, and she was thinking about maybe trying out some of her stuff there in the next couple of months.
    She picked up her guitar and started fooling around with a melody line she’d come up with the night before. It felt good to just play, to let herself get lost in the music. The notes seemed to fall into place easily, and soon she had turned the short phrase into a longer one. She played it again and again, trying it out and changing a note here and there until she had something she really liked. She played it again.
    Something about that sounds really familiar, she thought suddenly. But what was it? She played the music again, listening carefully. Was it something she’d heard on the radio? She didn’t think so, as she usually always remembered other people’s songs. But there was definitely something about the music that she had heard before.
    Then it hit her—she was playing part of the faerie music. It was a snippet of the song that Spider and the others had played as part of her “test” to see if she was good enough to join them. She had re-created it almost exactly as she’d heard it. Although she’d done her best to push that night from her mind, here it was coming back to her, and through the one thing she thought was hers and hers alone—her music.
    Angrily, she put down the guitar and stared at her hands. Why couldn’t she get away from the memories of that night? Why did she have to keep thinking about it? The song had seemed so beautiful to her before she remembered its true source. It hadn’t come from her own imagination; it had come from Spider’s, and from the instruments of the awful kids who had put her through such a terrifying ordeal.
    Great, she thought, now you’re in my music, too.
    She sighed. This wasn’t like her. Normally nothing could get to her. She’d always prided herself on being tough, invincible. She liked it that the other kids at school were sort of afraid of her. She’d even liked it in the beginning when Kate had been afraid of her, and the reason she’d taken to Annie so quickly was because she’d been strong enough to stand up to her. Very few people could do that. Just as very few people could make her doubt herself. But that’s what Spider and the others had done. Even Bird, who had helped her out in the end, had left her with more questions than answers. Nothing about that night made sense, and now she was being reminded of it all over again.
    Just then the phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She was glad to have a distraction, though, and she picked it up with a relieved “Hello?”
    â€œHey,” said a guy’s voice. “It’s me.”
    Cooper relaxed. It was T.J. He was probably the one person she really didn’t mind hearing from right then. In fact, lately she’d started looking forward to hearing from him.
    â€œWhat’s up?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
    â€œNot much,” he said. “I just happened to score two tickets for the Blink-182 show Thursday night at the Forum, and I thought I’d see if you wanted to go.”
    Do I want to go? Cooper thought. Of course I want to go!
    â€œI guess,” she said.
    â€œCool,” said T.J. “I’ll come by around seven, unless you want to get together earlier and get something to eat. Or whatever. We don’t have to if you’d rather not.”
    â€œHey, a girl has to eat,” Cooper replied. “How about we meet at the pizza place by the club at six?”
    â€œSure,” T.J. answered. “See you then.”
    Cooper hung up. She was surprised at how much she was looking forward to the evening. But was it because she was seeing Blink-182 or because she was seeing them with T.J.? She’d been to a lot of shows. In fact, she’d seen Blink-182 about