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Yasmin said.
    â€œAnd I’m here to tell you, lay off my sister.” I laid on the New Yawk accent really thick.
    Devon turned to me and asked, “Do you, like, know famous movie stars?”
    â€œNo,” I said, forgetting all about my gangster voice. “But my best friend Justine knows Leonardo.”
    â€œOhmyGod!” Devon screamed, grabbing her hair. Well, okay, Justine was rollerblading once in Central Park and breezed right past some scruffy-wonderfiil guy who looked just like Leonardo. She wasn’t positive that the beauty guy was Leonardo, but in her heart it was.
    â€œJustine goes rollerblading with him in Central Park sometimes,” I continued. “When he’s in town.”
    Devon and Yasmin sat in stunned silence, practically drooling onto the table. They looked at Lucy with new appreciation. Yasmin asked Lucy, “How many times have you seen Titanic?”
    Lucy didn’t even know how horrible her answer was. I think she was so happy they were talking to her and not making fun of her. “Never, actually. It came out so long ago and our vid machine is always breaking, and we’ve been so busy, with moving from Melbourne and Beatrice being born, I just . . . I just . . . haven’t seen it yet.”
    I was on Lucy’s side, and even I was looking at her like her head had just sprouted tree branches. She couldn’t be that hopeless—but she was! No wonder she was having a hard time at school. At the Progress School on the Upper West Side, boy bands and clothes styles come and go, but we will never, ever be over Jack Dawson, a.k.a. Leonardo, even if it came out like a million years ago.
    Then I had a brilliant idea. I said, “Devon and Yasmin, why don’t you guys come over so we can watch Titanic and you can explain all about Leonardo to my sister?”
    They both looked kind of embarrassed, like, What if someone sees us going into that weird girl from Melbourne’s house? I didn’t exactly want to encourage Lucy’s becoming friends with such jerky girls, even if they did love Leonardo the Most Beautiful, but I knew that if Lucy could become friendly with Devon and Yasmin, then other kids, better kids, would have the courage to talk to Lucy and be her friend. I fixed Devon and Yasmin with my coldest, most meanest New York squint-stare.
    â€œWell, all right,” Devon said quietly.
    â€œWhen?” I demanded.
    â€œSoon, I guess,” Yasmin said, but you could tell she wasn’t serious.
    â€œTell you what,” I said. I scribbled the Steps’ address on a napkin. “Here’s our address. Come by tomorrow at noon, and we’ll make popcorn and watch the movie.”
    â€œYour American accent is so cool,” Yasmin said.
    â€œYou sound just like those people on the telly,” Devon said.
    They got up to leave. “We’ll see you tomorrow?” I said.
    â€œYeah,” they answered back. They both looked at Lucy. “Well, bye, Lucy,” Yasmin said.
    Lucy’s face was flush with pleasure and relief.
    â€œBye!” she called out.
    I might not have been pleased about the Steps, but so long as they were my family, no one was going to mess with them on my watch.

Chapter 9
    Go figure. Lucy was titanically unimpressed with Leo. I almost—almost—admired her total freeze on Leo. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said after the movie. She said he totally was not cuter than Chandler on Friends, Lucy’s favorite megastar guy. “Anyway,” Lucy said, “Rose was the real hero of the movie, not Jack. She was the person I most admired in the movie.”
    Devon, Yasmin, and I sat on the pillows on the floor, drowning in popcorn and chocolate, with our tongues hanging out of our mouths. Did we hear Lucy correctly?
    I thought, Oh no, Lucy, don’t say that in front of Devon and Yasmin when you finally have two almost-supporters in