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pure party paradise. The Steeles’ basement came complete with a massive flat screen, a pool table, and a sleek bar area loaded with every drink and snack imaginable. A true shrine to teendom.
    We set up makeshift beds around the room and got changed into our pajamas. I remembered the pin in my pocket and wondered what that had to do with tonight.
    “It’s for something special later,” was all Cassie would say. “A little bit of mystery makes the evening more fun.”
    So far it was still Mystery 1, Jess 0. I hoped my record was about to improve.
    The atmosphere was chummy and relaxed as we settled in for the night, with Sarah Jane, me, a beauty queen named Mel, and Kyra all in a neat little row by the sliding-glass doors leading out to the pool deck.
    Sarah Jane stretched her long legs out in front of her. Her stars-and-moon pj’s made a constellation against her deep blue blanket. My yoga pants and Gap tee looked impossibly generic by comparison. Why hadn’t I thought to bring my cute lipstick-print boxer pj’s? Couldn’t I do anything right?
    “You’re lucky you have a job already, Jess,” Sarah Jane was saying. “All the good ones were already taken by college students when I went looking last month.”
    “I heard Casey Sturgeon got a job at Harry and Marie’s,” Kyra said, referring to the retro diner in the heart of town that was notorious for great tips. “Debbie Maloney and Jay Carter did too.”
    “Wow, that’s a step up for Jay,” Kyra said. “Didn’t he work at the car wash on Main last year? I know he’s trying to save up for college. He doesn’t think his parents will qualify for financial aid, but they can’t swing tuition without it.”
    I nodded along with everyone else at Jay’s good luck at landing the diner job, but I had no idea who Jay Carter was. Or Debbie Maloney, for that matter.
    I knew more people than most new students would after only a couple of months, thanks to hours of studying last year’s yearbook in the library. That was always the first thing I did at a new school, to help me get up to speed quickly on who’s who. It’s pretty easy to gauge who hangs in which groups from looking at the yearbook candids and group shots.
    But I didn’t know everyone. So I just nodded and smiled, taking my cue from everyone else’s responses, as I pretended I knew what they were talking about. All the while feeling like a fake.
    We chatted about finals, guys (not Ryan, thank goodness), and plans for the summer. After a while, I stopped having to pretend. I even contributed a few funny stories, including one that made Mel spit a raisin onto the carpet from laughing. Which made us all laugh even harder.
    It was a little weird being there with no parents, though. Cassie’s mom had died a year or two earlier, and Cassie’s dad was out of town at a surgeon’s conference. So it was just a dozen or so girls, yummy food, good music, and hours of chitchat.
    “So where have you been volunteering since you moved here, Jess?” Paige wanted to know as she plopped down at the edge of Mel’s sleeping bag.
    I did a double take. I hadn’t mentioned my volunteeringto anyone, certainly not here, where they might figure out I spent all my time volunteering to avoid having to sit home alone.
    “At the Humane Society, mostly,” I said. Helping abandoned animals sounded more glamorous than wielding a hammer on the porch of a Habitat house, even though I liked doing both.
    “I wish I could do that,” said Mel. “I’d love to volunteer there, but I’m allergic to cats.”
    “You could always do something outside or fund-raising or whatever. They’re getting ready to do a big adoption day at the elementary school, and adoption days always need a ton of people helping with paperwork. You wouldn’t even have to be in the cat area.”
    Mel didn’t say anything for a second. I took the opportunity to mentally smack myself for sounding like Dillweed Do-Gooder. Way to look cool, Jess. Suggest