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and glanced at my notebook. “I have insomnia.”
    “Kids don’t get insomnia.” I put the notebook on my dresser, then thought better of it—hadn’t Jocelyn told me she was in the highest reading group at school?—and stuffed it under my pillow.
    “What were you writing about?” she asked.
    “Nothing.” I turned over and faced her. Our beds were parallel to each other, a six-foot stripe of floor between them.
    “If I had a secret notebook, I’d write about all the things that other people hide from me. That’s what I’d do. I’d write about secrets.”
    “You can turn the light out,” I said. “I’m going to sleep.”
    She turned it out. “Why haven’t you invited me to visit you in Minnesota?”
    I could hear her scratching herself. She was always scratching. “I didn’t know you wanted to come,” I said.
    “I do. If you invited me, I could go to school with you. And if it was winter, it would be cold outside and when we got home we’d drink hot chocolate with little marshmallows in it and play a duet on the piano.”
    “That’s an interesting idea,” I said, “except that I don’t know how to play the piano. We don’t even have one.”
    “You don’t?” Jocelyn rustled around beneath her covers. “I thought everyone had a piano. Do you play the flute?”
    “No.”
    “The clarinet?”
    “I don’t play an instrument.”
    It was quiet for several minutes. I thought Jocelyn might have gone to sleep. But then her voice floated toward me in the dark. “What do you do after school if you don’t play an instrument? Do you play a sport?”
    “No.”
    “Do you go to your friends’ houses?”
    I looked out the window. The night was a black box full of stars.
    “Thea?”
    “What?”
    “Does it snow a lot in Minnesota?”
    “Not in the summer,” I said.
    “Maybe when I visit you, we can go sledding,” Jocelyn said. “It doesn’t snow in New Jersey very often.”
    I closed my eyes. I didn’t like thinking about the snow.
    “Thea?”
    “I’m tired, Jocelyn.” As soon as she stopped talking, I thought, she would fall asleep. But I fell asleep instead. The next thing I knew, it was eight o’clock, and Jocelyn’s bed was already empty, and very neatly made.
             
    Dear Mom and Dad, It’s sunny here. But it’s not very hot. Everybody says hello. Love, Thea

    Truth #19: I never know what to say on a postcard.

    “Who are you writing to?” Jocelyn leaned over my shoulder. “Are your parents going to bring you a souvenir?”
    “I doubt it,” I said. “Unless they’re planning to wrap up something from my bedroom and give it to me.”
    “My parents are bringing me something.” Jocelyn picked up a pink marker and wrote,
This is from Jocelyn too,
on the bottom of my postcard. “But I can’t write to them because I don’t know where they are. All parents argue sometimes,” she said.
    “I guess so. Can I have my card back?”
    Jocelyn was dotting the
i
in
this
with a little pink heart.
    “Nenna, I’m going to the mailbox,” I called. The house was quiet. Nenna and Granda and Jocelyn and I were the only ones home.
    “What did you say, Thea?” Nenna wore hearing aids in both ears, but sometimes they didn’t seem to work.
    “I’m going out to mail a letter.” When I turned around, Jocelyn was in front of the door, struggling with the buckles on her sandals. Across her chest she was wearing her patent leather purse.
    “Where do you think
you’re
going?” I asked.
    “I’m going with you.”
    “Did you say you’re going to the store, Thea?” Nenna had taken the hearing aid out of one ear. She tapped it against the back of her hand. “Would you mind picking up a gallon of milk?”
    “I’ll do it, Nenna,” Jocelyn said, raising her hand as if she were in school. “I’m going with Thea.”
    “Good girl.” Nenna gave her a kiss. Then she kissed me, too. She tucked several bills into Jocelyn’s purse.
    We bought the milk and a pack of gum