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Claudia were sort of on the same wavelength all of a sudden, and reading the same books that Rachel and I had read together.
    Claudia licked ketchup off her thumb. “So when are you going to go back, Amy?”
    That was too much for Rachel. “Don’t encourage her,” she said. “She’s half out of her tree as it is, can’t you tell? Amy’s going to California, that’s where she’s going, but she’s panicking about it. So she’s made up this detour into some kind of dreamworld.”
    â€œKevin is a prince,” Claudia said, “and Amy’s in the prophecy. She has some absolutely crucial task to do so Kevin can win back his kingdom. She’s going away, like you say, Rachel, so this was his last chance to get to her. Her cousin dying made that possible, don’t you see? Broke her concentration or something. Because it’s all fated. ”
    Claudia was a sucker for anything about royalty. She would have sat there and listened to me babble about Kevin and his Fayre Farre all night and believed every word.
    I suddenly realized that the person I really wanted to talk to about all this, the person who would have had something enlightening to say, was Cousin Shelly. I got a flash of her standing on the tiny terrace of her apartment, watering her potted plants with a long-nosed green plastic watering can.
    And then I thought of her looking little and pale and scared in that stupid hospital bed, blinking unhappily at the cut flowers people had sent.
    I guess my feelings showed. Rachel got this smirk of make-believe sympathy on her face that made me want to smack her. The idea of her really understanding what I was talking about seemed stupid. What had I expected? I was in this alone.
    â€œLet’s go,” I said, getting up. “They’re glaring at us for taking up their precious table.”
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    * * *
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    It was getting late. We walked Claudia home first. I didn’t say anything more about the Fayre Farre. They both tactfully let it drop, that and Shelly and this whole looming threat of going to the other end of the country to live in a place full of blondes like Rachel where I, with my mop of kinky brown hair and olive skin, would stick out like a sore thumb. To my relief, we mostly just complained about the humongous homework assignments we were getting from the new history teacher.
    Claudia made us wait a minute at the door while she got a book for me. She insisted, shyly, that I take it, although I was already carrying the shoes Rachel had returned. It was a short history of Central Park, with photographs and a map with all the arches shown on it.
    When I got home, Mom was deep in a phone conversation with her brother Ted. Dad’s plane had been delayed. I told Aunt Jennie good-night and went to bed, but I left the light on in my closet.
    Maybe the Bone Men had gotten Kevin by now. Maybe if they got you, you turned into one of them. Kevin had never been my idea of a nice guy to start with. Now he might come looking for me, rattling his skeleton fingers. Which made it that much worse that he could have done—well, what he’d done: made a fantasy world turn real.
    If he could do that, then why couldn’t I bring Cousin Shelly back by thinking about her? I’d sort’ve tried since she’d died, even going once to Cannibal’s and pretending she was there with me. I’d visualized her as hard as I could, pretending she was pouring some of her espresso into my milk and adding just a little sugar. Naturally, she hadn’t really shown up.
    Instead, I got Kevin. Give me a break. He could take his magical world and stuff it.
    In my sleep Claudia’s dog-pocketbook walked into the middle of my plate of fries and said firmly:
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“When old acquaintance or old friends
Twist and turn to evil ends,
Even a dog-purse gives his aid
Unless he’s just too darn afraid.”
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    I woke up next morning,