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such a little kid! Twelve-year-olds don't do the things I'd been doing for the past year. They're too… young. This meant I'd been sneaking up the fire escape since I was
eleven?
What kind of insane mother did I have?
    I stumbled across the Highrise lawn, jaywalked Broadway, and burst through the Pup Parlor door.
    “What's wrong?” Vera asked when she saw my face. She put down a dog brush and hurried over. “What happened? Are you all right?”
    “No!” I said, shaking all over. “I'm… I'm…”
    She put her arm around me. “You're what, dear?”
    “I'm… I'm…” I felt like I was choking.
    Meg was there now, too. So was Holly.
    I looked from one to the other to the other. “I'm…
    “Sammy, it's okay,” Holly whispered. “Just say it.”
    “I'm…” They all hung on the word until I burst into tears, crying,
“twelve!”
    “You're … twelve?” Vera asked, and her arm loosened around my shoulders.
    I nodded.
    “What?”
Meg said.
    Tears were springing out everywhere.
    “I don't understand,” Vera said. “Aren't you
supposed
to be twelve?”
    “No!” I cried, and I actually stamped my foot. “I'm supposed to be thirteen! I'm supposed to be turning fourteen tomorrow!”
    “But…” they all said, then asked, “Tomorrow?”
    “Yes! They held me back in kindergarten! Why? Because my mom told everyone I was five when I was only four! Only she never told
me
that! Not until today! Happy birthday, Samantha! And oh, by the way, I've been lying to you for eight years.” I flung back tears. “Why am I surprised? Why am I even surprised? I hate her I hate her I hate her!”
    Vera wrapped me in her arms and said, “There, there,” as I bawled into her shoulder.
    “Oh man,” Holly said. “Your mom sure knows how to mess with your head.”
    “But you don't hate her,” Vera said gently. “You're just hurt.”
    I pulled away and said, “And Grams! She's known all along.”
    Vera sighed. “I'm so sorry.”
    I needed air. Lots of air. I dried my face and said, “I'm going for a walk. I've got to get out of here.”
    “I'm going with you,” Holly said. And Meg and Vera nodded like, Absolutely! Go!
    So I tore out of there, going who-knows-where, with Holly trailing along trying to make me feel better, saying stuff like, “So look at the bright side—you
didn't
flunk kindergarten,” and “You're the same person you always were—it doesn't really matter,” and “Hey! Get your grandmother to make it up to you by telling your mother that she's a couple of years
older
than she really is. That'll freak her out good!”
    I almost smiled at that last one. My mom's such an age-aphobic that it would be a great thing to pull. But I was too mad to actually smile. I wanted to hit something. Kick something. Smash something to bits.
    Instead, I started looking in trash cans.
    “Are we looking for cats?” Holly asked.
    “Yeah, I guess. I just want to stop thinking about my stupid mom and her stupid stunts.”
    Holly shrugged. “Well, if dead cats will help you do that, I hope we find some.”
    I laughed. Then I laughed again. Then I looked at her and said, “Am I being that pathetic?”
    “No!” she said. “I don't blame you a bit.”
    “But for you to be hoping we find dead cats…”
    “Well, you know what I mean. And I have been thinking about it all day.”
    “Yeah?”
    “The look on Mr. T's and Snowball's faces… I don't know… it's just been haunting me.”
    So we stopped talking about my stupid mother, cut down a service alley, and started looking in trash cans for real. And before too long we found ourselves coming up to the propped-open back door of Maynard's Market.
    There was a faded yellow El Camino parked out back, so we knew that Maynard's loser son, T.J., was working the counter. And just our luck, T.J. spotted us. “Hey!” he yelled as I pushed open his trash lid. “What do you
garbage
girls think you're doing?”
    “Lookin' for dead bodies,” I threw back with a