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won’t, will I?”
    We giggled all the way downstairs.
    From: Sadie Douglas
To: Pippa Reynolds
Date: Sunday, April 8, 8:21 PM
Subject: RE: Bunny Suit Disaster
    Frankie let me borrow her computer so I could email you back. We both almost wet our pants when I read your story about wearing the bunny suit inside the bounce house, falling down, and not being able to get back up. I wish I could have seen those kids trying to help you up while the others dogpiled you. Where were the other Sunday school teachers??!?
    We went out for pizza tonight — real New York pizza that’s baked in a stone oven. The whole place smelled like tomato sauce and cheese were baked into the walls. The restaurant has been around forever, I guess, and old black-and-white photos of movie stars and mobsters and former U.S. presidents lined the walls.
    I’m worried about Frankie. She doesn’t talk much around her mom. I guess it’s because her mom is always talking. But she’s constantly trying to “improve” Frankie, too, like telling her to watch her posture, stop picking at her fingernails, and not slurp her soda. Frankie’s under constant surveillance. And her mom calls her “Francesca.” Can you imagine calling Frankie, Francesca? I couldn’t understand why Frankie didn’t want to come to New York, but now I see the problem. I think her mom will try to change her into something she’s not. And Frankie’s mom is all mushy with her boyfriend, too. Which is kind of gross. They even rubbed noses during dinner.
    I opened Andrew’s card today. He gave me a necklace — and the pendant is a burst of three shooting stars. His note said: “Thought of you when I saw this … Happy Easter.”
    What does that mean? And what about Annabelle?

Chapter 7

Footprints
    I t wasn’t until we were sitting there on the drop cloth, our toes dripping with glow in the dark paint, that Frankie and I realized the flaw in our plan. All the way across the room from the bathroom, we were trapped.
    “Whose idea was this, anyway?” Frankie asked.
    “You have to admit,” I said, “The footprints are the perfect touch.”
    We sat back and studied our mural. Pine, maple, and aspen trees filled a twilight version of our forest back home, with wildflowers blooming in splashes of color, and stars bright against the darkening sky. Despite her mixed feelings about the bears, Frankie let me add Patch and her yearlings to the mural. Patch’s ears and snout poked around the side of a thick tree, while her yearlings balanced in the branches above. After adding an owl, a red-feathered cardinal, a fewhummingbirds, a raccoon, and a rabbit or two, we decided the mural needed something more.
    “Something mysterious,” Frankie had said.
    Since we’d bought glow-in-the-dark paint for the stars, it seemed wasteful to use it for only a few stars and a sliver of moon.
    “What about some footprints? Glow-in-the-dark ones. They could go down here in the darkest part of the forest so you wonder who left them and where they’re going,” I’d said.
    Then we’d quickly torn off our socks and shoes, covered our feet with paint, and awkwardly angled ourselves until we could make the footprints go in the right direction, never considering how we’d wash our feet afterward.
    I lay back now, careful not to touch the hardwood floor. “Looks like we’ll be here for a while.”
    Frankie lay back too and sighed. “When you leave New York, this will all be so real and so horrible.”
    “What? Patch lurking in your bedroom — ready to sneak up on you during the night?”
    Frankie laughed. I laughed too and the sadness dissolved for the moment. We couldn’t avoid it forever, but I wasn’t ready for good-byes yet.
    “We could crawl to the bathroom,” I suggested, pushing up onto my hands and knees.
    Frankie held up her paint-coated hands and gave me a questioning look.
    “So blow on them,” I said.
    Frankie smeared her hands down the back of my shirt,so I dipped my fingers into