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look worried again. Maybe I’m the jerk.  
    “I was just about to. It’s why I couldn’t get out to meet you. The O’Garas—all of them—dropped by right when I was about to leave. And get this: they bought a house right around the corner from me, and bought their van from Uncle Louie! All those Echtran paparazzi are bad enough, but this is taking stalking to a whole new level.”
    No kidding! “Last night was totally not your fault, M,” I say, trying not to frown so she won’t think I’m mad at her. Because I’m definitely not. But this Sean thing is even worse than I thought. “I’ll bet Allister’s behind this. He probably found that house for them, maybe even convinced the previous owners to sell.”
    “Now that you mention it, I don’t remember a house that close to ours with a “For Sale” sign. So . . . you really think he brought them here to spy on me?”  
    I can tell she doesn’t want to believe that. I don’t blame her, after those evil Echtrans almost killed her last month. We both assumed—hoped—the threat was over for good after that. And maybe that threat is. I have a growing suspicion that this is a completely different one. Not to her life, maybe, but to her happiness. And definitely to mine.
    “To spy . . . or maybe to influence you,” I say carefully. “Allister knows you don’t like him much, which means it’ll be hard for him to do that himself. Maybe he figures people your own age—”  
    The bell rings and we have to sprint for our seats. “We’ll talk more at lunch,” she whispers.  
    I just nod. Because I’m not sure I want to tell M what I really suspect—that Sean was brought to Jewel to steal her away from me.

C HAPTER 7

    Bailerealta (bay-luh-ree-AL-tuh): an all-Martian village on the west coast of Ireland

    I was antsy during my next few classes, anxious for lunchtime so I could hear the rest of Rigel’s theory about the O’Garas. But when we got to the cafeteria, Molly was already sitting at our usual table along with Bri, Deb, and a few guys from the football team. At least Sean wasn’t there. I could see him at another table with most of the basketball team.
    I paused for a second before Molly saw me, then decided I might as well give her the benefit of the doubt—for now. She’d seemed nice enough so far.
    “Hey, Molly,” I greeted her cheerfully. Then, to Bri and Deb, “Thanks for inviting her to sit with us, guys.” I sat down next to her, across from my friends, and Rigel sat on my other side.  
    “She was just starting to tell us about Ireland,” Deb said. “Doesn’t she have the coolest accent?”
    Molly laughed. “I told them it’s nothing special—this is how everyone sounds in Ireland.” Her accent was noticeably stronger than it had been yesterday.
    “I guess you’d know,” I said, amused. Could I put on accents that easily if I tried? “It’s special to us, since we’ve never met anyone from Ireland before.”
    Molly echoed my amusement with a glance, and I felt a little glow of pleasure at sharing a secret with her. Of course, I’d been sharing the same secret with Rigel since learning the truth in September, but somehow it was different with a girlfriend.  
    Prompted by questions from everyone at the table, Molly talked about the tiny village of Bailerealta, things like always having to wait for sheep to cross the road, and being in a school so small that two or three whole grades shared a room and teacher.  
    I was at least as interested as the others but the stuff I really wanted to know, like whether everybody in the village used Martian technology and how often new people arrived there from Mars, were things I couldn’t exactly ask about at lunch.
    Twenty minutes later, just as we were gathering up our trays, Trina approached our table—something she almost never did. Even when she flirted with Rigel, she didn’t do it here.
    “Hi, Molly—it’s Molly, right?”  
    Molly nodded.  
    “I’m Trina