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appalled.
    “Gracie, get over yourself.”
    “Don’t tell Dad,” Alex said. “Okay?”
    “Your secret is safe with us,” Jen said, before Gracie could say anything.
    Jen took the driveway at twenty-five, slamming on the brakes just before crunching into the garage door. They piled out of the car and dragged their stuff inside.
    Mom usually didn’t get home until after six. Dad had left a note on the counter:

    Kids,
    I have gone to an out-of-town job interview. Won’t be back until day after tomorrow. Do your homework. Listen to your mother!
    Dad

    Alex breathed a sign of relief when he read the note.
    “Out of town?” Gracie said. “If the interview is out of town, does that mean the job is out of town?”
    “I dunno,” Alex mumbled, opening the refrigerator.
    “No clue,” said Jen as she climbed the stairs.
    “What good would it do for Dad to get a job in a different town?”
    No one answered Gracie’s question. She dialed Dylan’s number, and when the answering machine came on, she said, “Dylan, it’s Gracie. It’s
urgent.
Meet me under the weeping willow.”
    Oh, wait.
How foolish of her. She’d forgotten, Dylan was indisposed. He was busy striking his hot iron with Lindsay Jacobs.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Okay, things were really getting out of hand. No doubt what Gracie had written about the Chesterville Soup Kitchen and the Red Cross was at this very minute getting messed up in some diabolical way that would be on tonight’s news or the front page of tomorrow’s paper. Maybe someone would donate a truckload of canned goods that had gone bad and the entire homeless population of Chesterville would get botulism. Or legions of people donating blood to the Red Cross would have the Ebola virus or bird flu and spread it. Or the blood would be the wrong type and people’s bodies would reject it. There was no way of knowing exactly how things would go wrong, but Gracie knew they would. And who would believe her if she tried to tell them?
    Well, maybe there was one person. She pictured Ms. Campanella’s long white fingers, remembered the way she spoke with such passion about writing. Gracie had wanted to talk to her and had forgotten all about it in the confusion with Dylan after class. She ran into the computer room, went to the school Web site, and e-mailed Ms. Campanella.

    Dear Ms. Campanella,
    I have been thinking a lot about what you asked in class today about whether what happens in the world makes sense.
    I was wondering, have you ever heard of someone writing something which later came true? This has been happening to me lately with a journal I’ve got and I’m scared. Should I stop writing in it? What should I do?
    Gracie Rawley, fourth block English

    As she sent the e-mail into cyberspace, Mo suddenly leaped onto her shoulder, poked his nose deep into her hair, and, purring loudly, licked her earlobe.
    “Mo, stop it!” Gracie sat up and tossed him on the floor. He jumped right back up and nudged against her, still purring. Cats were so
contrary.
If you wanted to hold them, they wanted nothing but to get away. If you wanted them to leave you alone, they’d pester you to death.
    Upstairs, loud, wrenching emo music came from Jen’s room, and Alex’s minibasketball rhythmically thumped against the backboard suspended from his closet door.
    Gracie suddenly remembered the way that little old lady had said, “Not that one! She mustn’t take that one!” She dumped Mo onto the floor, grabbed the journal, and raced out the back door. Maybe Gracie needed some extra instructions or something. That was all. Maybe Gracie and the thin-faced man should have paid Miss Alice more attention. Gracie hurried with the blue journal down the street, across the golf course, and toward the cul-de-sac with the crumbling Tudor-style house.
    She arrived and stood by the mailbox, staring. The house was gone. In its place: A bulldozer, a red clay mound, and a house-sized hole. Fresh yellow lumber lay neatly stacked in