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girls, but others just— poof !” She fluttered her fingers. “Others forget they ever existed.”
    Natasha was not a silly girl. She didn’t like being called a silly girl. She didn’t like being lumped in with silly girls she didn’t even know, and she certainly didn’t like being poof ed away, even by this batty old woman.
    The Bird Lady stepped closer than Natasha would have preferred. She smelled like sunflowers, and her expression was full of mischief.
    â€œForget Emily,” she said.
    â€œSo I can be like everyone else who forgot her?” Natasha said. “I don’t even know who she is, so howcan I forget her?” She had never talked back to an adult before, though this felt awfully close to it. Her heart fluttered.
    The Bird Lady poked her, hard.
    She said, “Ow.”
    â€œServes you right,” the Bird Lady said. “Sins of the mother, and so on and so on.”
    â€œWhose mother? My mother?” Natasha’s temper rose. “ Don’t talk about my mother.”
    â€œSounds to me as though you’re talking about your mother.” She nodded. “I quite liked your mother, you know—though she was a silly girl, too.”
    â€œOka-a-a-y,” Natasha said. She had no idea what was going on, and she didn’t like it.
    The Bird Lady’s wrinkled face broke into a wide smile. “Okay! Yes, okay! That’s wonderful!”
    What was wonderful? The Bird Lady seemed to think that Natasha had agreed to something, but she most definitely hadn’t.
    Natasha spotted someone inside one of the stores. It was Benton’s friend Stanley. He was watching her from the wide window of the sporting goods store his parents owned. He worked there before and after school.
    Natasha was mortified. She knew Stanley couldn’thave overheard her conversation with the Bird Lady. But he’d seen them together. He’d seen them talking.
    â€œGirls are all so silly,” the Bird Lady said. “Don’t you agree, pet?”
    Natasha sidled around the Bird Lady and hurried toward school. Behind her, she heard the concurring chirp of the Bird Lady’s sparrow.

CHAPTER SIX
    â€œW hat’s wrong?” Molly asked Natasha at her locker. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
    Natasha clamped her lips together.
    â€œFor real,” Molly said. She tapped Natasha’s shoulder, in the exact same spot where the Bird Lady had.
    The Bird Lady had touched her, and said weird things to her, and then she’d laughed at her.
    Silly, silly girl . No, silly, silly girls . Plural, because of Emily, whoever that was, and Natasha’s mother, whom the Bird Lady had “quite liked.”
    Natasha had prickled when the Bird Lady mentioned Mama. The Bird Lady wasn’t allowed tomention Mama, whether she’d liked her or not. There should be a law against it.
    â€œNa ta sha,” Molly said in a singsong voice. “I will pester you until you tell me, so you might as well get it over with.” She widened her eyes. “Ooo! Did you see a ghost? I will be so jealous if you saw a ghost. Not that I believe in ghosts. But did you?”
    A boy shut his locker with a bang. Natasha flinched.
    Molly studied her. In a gentler tone, she asked, “Hey, are you all right?”
    â€œDo you know anyone named Emily?” Natasha blurted.
    â€œNo. Why?”
    â€œNo reason.”
    â€œLiar.”
    Natasha dug her fingernails into the pad of her palm. “Something strange happened on the way to school, but it’s not important. Anyway, I probably made it up.”
    Over the next four hours, Natasha wondered if she had made up her encounter with the Bird Lady. If there was any possible way she’d imagined it all.
    But she hadn’t. She knew she hadn’t.
    When noon arrived, she and Molly claimed theirusual table at the back of the cafeteria. One other person sat with them, only not really, since he chose