"Because nobody gets to do what they want to do, Toni. I want to lie in the backyard in a hammock all day," my dad said, jerking a thumb at his chest. "Jess over there wants to cruise the countryside on the back of a hog. And Mikey—" He looked at Michael, who was busy chewing. "Well, I don't know what the hell Mikey wants to do—"

"Screw Claire Lippman," I suggested, causing Michael to kick me very hard beneath the table.

My dad shot me a warning look, and continued. "But whatever it is, Toni, he doesn't get to do it. Nobody gets to do what they want to do, Toni. What they get to do is what they should do, and what Dougie should do is go back to college."

Relieved to have some of the heat off me, I excused myself and cleared my place at the table. I hadn't talked to Ruth all day. I was eager to see what she thought of this whole thing. I mean, it isn't every day your best friend ends up on the front page of the local rag.

But I never got to find out what Ruth thought of the whole thing. Because when I stepped outside onto the porch, preparing to jump over the hedge that separated our two houses, I was confronted by what looked like an army of reporters, all of them parked in front of our house and waving cameras and microphones.

"There she is!" One of them, a newscaster I recognized from Channel Four, came stumbling across my lawn, her high heels sinking into the grass. "Jessica! Jessica! How does it feel to be a national heroine?"

I stared down at the fuzzy microphone blankly. Then about a million other microphones appeared in my face. Everyone started asking questions at once. It was my mother's press conference, only all I had on was jeans and a T-shirt. I hadn't even thought to comb my hair.

"Um," I said into the microphones.

Then my dad was there, yanking me back into the house, and yelling at all the reporters to get off his property. No one listened—at least, not until the cops came. Then we got to see how all those free lunches my dad had given the guys on the force paid off. You never saw people as mad as those cops were when they turned down Lumley Lane and couldn't even find a place to park, there were so many news vans blocking the way. There are so few crimes in our neck of the woods that when one did happen, our boys in blue go to town on the offender.

When they saw all the reporters on our lawn, they went mental, only in a different way than my mom had. They called back to the station, and, next thing you knew, they had brought out all their fanciest equipment, riot gear and drug-sniffing dogs and flash grenades. You name it, they brought it over, and looked pretty intent on using it on the reporters, some of whom were from pretty big networks.

I have to say, I was way impressed. Mike and I watched the whole thing from my dormer window. Mike even went on the Internet and ran a search for my name, and said there were already two hundred and seventy sites that mentioned Jessica Mastriani. Nobody had taken my face and superimposed it over a Playboy bunny's naked body, but Mike said it was only a matter of time.

Then the phone started ringing.

The first few calls were from reporters standing outside, using their cell phones. They wanted me to come out and make a statement, just one. Then they promised to leave. My dad hung up on them.

Then people who weren't reporters, but whom we still didn't know, started calling, asking if I was available to help them find a missing relative, a child, a husband, a father. At first my dad was nice to them, and told them that it didn't work that way, that I had to see a picture of the missing person. Then they started saying they'd fax a picture, or e-mail it. Some of them said they were coming right on over with one, they'd be there in a few hours.

That's when my dad disconnected the phone.

I was a celebrity. Or a prisoner in my own house. Whichever you prefer.

I still hadn't gotten to talk to Ruth, and I really wanted to. But since I couldn't go outside or call her, my only resource was to instant-message her from Michael's computer. He was feeling sorry for me, so, in spite of my crack about Claire Lippman, he let me.

Ruth, however, wasn't too pleased to hear from me.

Ruth: Why the HELL didn't you tell me about any of this?

Me: Look, Ruth, I didn't tell anybody, okay? It was all just too weird.

Ruth: But I'm supposed to be your best friend.

Me: You are my best friend.

Ruth: Well, I bet you told Rob Wilkins.

Me: I swear I didn't.

Ruth: Oh, right. You don't tell the guy you're boffing that you're psychic. I really believe that one.

Me: First of all, I am not boffing Rob Wilkins. Second of all, do you really think I wanted anyone to know about this? It's totally freaky. You know I like to keep a low profile.

Ruth: It was totally uncool of you not to tell me. Do you know people from school have been calling, asking me if I knew, and I've had to pretend like I did, just to save face? You are the worst best friend I've ever had.

Me: I'm the only best friend you've ever had. And you don't have any right to be mad, since it's all your fault anyway, for making me walk in that stupid thunderstorm.

Ruth: What are you going to do with the reward money? You know, I could really use a new stereo for the Cabriolet. And Skip says to tell you he wants the new Tomb Raider.

Me: Tell Skip I said I'm not buying him anything until he apologizes for that whole strapping-my-Barbie-to-the-bottle-rocket business.

Ruth: You know, I don't see how any of us are going to be able to get to school tomorrow. The street is totally blocked. It looks like a scene out of Red Dawn down there.

The truth was, Ruth was right. With the cops forming this protective shield in front of my house, and our driveway all blockaded, it sort of did look like the Russians were coming or something. No one could get up or down our street without flashing an ID that proved they lived there to the cops. For instance, if Rob wanted to cruise by on his Indian—not that he would want to, but let's say he took a wrong turn, or what-ever—he totally couldn't. The cops wouldn't let him through.

I tried not to let this bother me. I logged off with Ruth, after assuring her that, though I hadn't told her, I hadn't told anyone else, either, which seemed to placate her somewhat, especially after I told her, if she wanted to, she could tell everyone she'd already known—I certainly didn't care. This made her very happy, and I suppose after she logged off with me, she logged on with Muffy and Buffy and all of the pathetic popular kids whose friendship she so assiduously courts, for reasons I had never been able to fathom.

I took out my flute and practiced for a while, but to tell you the truth, I didn't really put my heart into it. Not because I was thinking about the whole psychic thing. Please. That would make sense.

No, in spite of my resolve not to allow them to, my thoughts kept creeping back to Rob. Had he wondered where I was when I didn't show up for detention that afternoon? If he tried calling to find out where I was, he wouldn't be able to get through, since my dad had disconnected the phone. He had to have seen the paper, right? I mean, you would think, now that he knew I'd been touched by the finger of God, he might want to talk to me, right?

You would think that. But I guess not. Because even though I listened for it, I never did hear the purr of that Indian.

And I don't think it was because the cops wouldn't let him through the blockade. I think he didn't even try.

So much for unrequited love. What is wrong with guys, anyway?



C H A P T E R

12

When I woke up the next morning, I was kind of cranky, on account of Rob preferring not to have to go to jail rather than spend time in my company. But I perked up a little when I remembered I didn't have to slink around anymore, looking for a pay phone in order to call 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU. Hell, I could just call them from my own house. So I got up, reconnected the phone, and dialed.

Rosemary didn't answer, so I asked to speak to her. The lady who answered went, "Is this Jess?" and I said, "Yes, it is," and she said, "Hold on."

Only instead of connecting me with Rosemary, she connected me to Rosemary's butt-head supervisor, Larry, who I'd spoken to the day before. He went, "Jessica! What a pleasure. Thank you so much for calling. Do you have some more addresses for us today? I'm afraid we were cut off yesterday—"

"Yes, we were, Larry," I said, "thanks to your phoning in the Feds. Now, connect me with Rosemary, or I'm hanging up."

Larry sounded kind of taken aback. "Well, now, Jess," he said. "We didn't mean to upset you. Only, you have to understand, when we get a call like yours, we're obligated to investigate—"

"Larry," I said, "I understand perfectly. Now put Rosemary on the phone."

Larry made all these indignant noises, but, eventually, he transferred me to Rosemary. She sounded really upset.

"Oh, Jess," she said. "I am so sorry, honey. I wish I could have said something, warned you somehow. But you know, they trace all the calls—"

"That's okay, Rosemary," I said. "No harm done. I mean, what girl doesn't want a news crew from Dateline in her front yard?"

Rosemary said, "Well, at least you can joke about it. I don't know if I could."

"Water under the bridge," I said. At the time I really meant it, too. "So, look, here's the two kids from yesterday, and I have two more, if you're ready."

Rosemary was ready. She took down the information I gave her, said, "God bless you, sweetheart," and hung up. Then I hung up, too, and started getting ready for school.

Of course, that was easier said than done. Outside our house it was a zoo again. There were more vans than ever before, some with these giant satellite dishes on top of them. There were reporters standing in front of them, and when I turned on the TV, it was sort of surreal, because on almost every channel, you could see my house, with someone standing there in front of it going, "I'm here in front of this quaint Indiana home, a home that has been declared a historic landmark by the county, but which has reached international fame by being home to heroine Jessica Mastriani, whose extraordinary psychic powers have led to the recovery of a half dozen missing children.  .  .  ."

The cops were there, too. By the time I got downstairs, my mom was already bringing them seconds of coffee and biscotti. They were gulping them down almost as fast as she could bring them out.

And, of course, the minute I had put the phone down, it started ringing. When my dad picked it up, and someone asked to speak to me but wouldn't give his name, he disconnected it again.

It was, in other words, a mess.

None of us realized how bad a mess, however, until Douglas wandered into the kitchen, looking a little wild-eyed.

"They're after me," he said.

I nearly choked on my corn flakes. Because the only time Douglas ever starts talking about "them" is when he is having an episode.

My dad knew something was wrong, too. He put down his coffee and stared at Douglas worriedly.

Only my mom was oblivious. She was loading more biscotti onto a plate. She said, "Don't be ridiculous, Dougie. They're after Jessica, not you."

"No," Douglas said. He shook his head. "It's me they want. You see those dishes? Those satellite dishes on top of their vans? They're scanning my thought waves. They're using those satellite dishes to scan my thought waves."

I dropped my spoon. My dad went, gently, "Doug, did you take your medicine yesterday?"

"Don't you see?" Douglas, quick as a flash, yanked the biscotti out of my mom's hands and flung the plate to the floor. "Are you all blind? It's me they want! It's me!"

My dad jumped up and put his arms around Douglas. I pushed away my cereal bowl and said, "I better go. Maybe if I go, they'll follow me—"

"Go," my dad said.

I went. I got up, grabbed my flute and my backpack, and headed for the door.

They followed me. Or, I should say, they followed Ruth, who'd managed to convince the cops to let her out of her driveway and into mine. I jumped into the front seat, and we took off. If I hadn't been so worried about Douglas, I would have enjoyed watching all the reporters trying to scramble into their vans and follow us. But I was concerned. Douglas had been doing so well. What had happened?

"Well," Ruth said. "You have to admit, it's a lot to take."