Summary: Crystal is pretty adept at finding mysteries—and, she thinks, solving them.  But lately it’s her best friend, Chad, who’s been giving her most of her cause for worry.  He has a secret.  One she suspects is more important than the “deepest secret” of most fourteen-year-olds.  But once she’s finally discovered what it is, she’s in over her head.  Because Chad isn’t exactly, well, human…

I’d always known Mr. Clark was weird.  How could you live in our town and not know? 

Mr. Clark was the librarian at the local public library.  He was a thin, gaunt man of indeterminate age (some said he’d never been born—he was always just there, every day at the library).  He’d definitely been there for as long as I’d lived here, which was ten years.

Mr. Clark’s voice rarely raised over a whisper.  He certainly did not tolerate anything above a whisper in his library.  He wasn’t mellow—far from it.  But instead of becoming loudly angry and red in the face, he lowered his voice to a hiss.  His skin would turn skeleton-white.  He looked like a skeleton to begin with, so this made him doubly intimidating.

No one knew where he lived.  No one knew if he was married.  Once, fed up with all the secrecy, I’d asked him.  I’d gotten a hissed reply: “That’s none of your business.”

And I guess it wasn’t.  But give me a break, I was only nine.  Right now, I’m fourteen.  I’m no better with concealed information nowadays, but I do have the sense not to bother Mr. Clark.  That’s the rule of thumb with Mr. Clark: don’t bother me, and I’ll leave you alone.

Anyway, since this story is more about me than Mr. Clark (though he plays a major role in it), I guess I ought to introduce myself.

I’m Crystal Wimmer.  If you want to know how I look, picture a kinda short strawberry-blond girl with a thin, pointed face.  I hate my face.  My mother says I’m “narrow of face and very pretty.”  I say I’m pointy-chinned and long-nosed.

I have light gray eyes that are sort of large for my face, and colorless lashes and brows.  My mom says my eyes will look wonderful with mascara in a few years.  I say, once ugly, always ugly.  How can a little bit of coloring here and there change something like that?

Anyway, it was a warm, sunny week in early June when this whole thing happened.  Not exactly the kind of weather you’d expect to precede a terrifying, strange ordeal.  But if you think about it, the weather seldom warns us of things.  Outside of popular fiction, anyway.  On Wednesday, I awoke in the morning to Metallica music, which was customary.

Bang!  Bang!  Bang!

I pounded my fist on the wall behind my bed.

“Hey, turn it down in there!” I called out.  The music abruptly cut off, and an even stronger fist answered mine from the other side of the wall.

BANG!  BANG!  BANG!

“Are you still in bed?” a voice demanded.  That would be Chad, my neighbor.  Our families share a duplex house, which means that it is really two houses in one.  The houses are exact mirror images of each other, separated by a thin wall.  Guess who shares a wall with another bedroom?  Chad knows not to play music too loudly in the morning, but as his room is right off of mine, there’s not much I can’t hear.

“What’s the good of a vacation if you can’t sleep in?” I asked.

“What’s the good of a CD player if you can’t use it?” Chad countered.  He turned the music on again, but the volume was a little lower this time.  I heard the sounds of rustling fabric, and knew he was getting dressed.  I looked at my alarm clock: seven AM.

I sighed.  Chad’s must more of a morning person than I am.  He gets up with the sun.  Me, I would sleep till noon if I could.

Feeling a little guilty from Chad’s example of wakefulness, I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.  Opening my window for a sniff of my mother’s rose garden, I got dressed, too.  Over the chirping of the birds, I could hear Chad’s music.  It’s strange how well you can know someone by their music.  This was a song that I’d noticed Chad usually listened to when he was bummed or upset.  Not a usual morning selection.  What was wrong?

I knocked on the wall again.  A short knock, then a long knock, followed by another short one.  The signal that I wanted to talk.  I guess it’s silly, but Chad and I have developed a lot of knocking signals.  Chad came up with the idea when we were younger.  He is a drummer for the school band, so I guess rhythm is on his mind a lot. (He says the proper name for “drummer” is “percussionist,” and becomes annoyed when I call him a drummer.  But he’s playfully annoyed, if you know what I mean.  He doesn’t really mind.)

I leaned out my window, feeling a slight summer breeze on my cheek.  Chad leaned out of his.  With the configuration of our rooms, our windows are about five feet apart.  We can easily have conversations by leaning out the window.

“So, what’s up?” I asked him.  Chad looked puzzled.

“Well, I just got up, got dressed…it’s the morning.  It’s too early for anything to be up yet.”

“I’ll agree with that.  I mean, is something bothering you?”

He looked at me strangely, his sky-blue eyes (they’re literally sky blue, though he gives me weird looks when I point this out) both amused and surprised.  “Actually, yes,” he told me.  Then he grimaced. “Aunt Gracie and Uncle Gerald are coming to visit.  And you know what that means.”

Yes, I certainly did.  I grimaced and said, “How long will they be here?”

“A week.  At least we’ve got an extra bedroom.”

“Well.  I certainly don’t envy you,” I told him. “If you live, we’ll go get ice cream afterwards to celebrate.”

“They get here Friday,” he told me. “I’ve got a few days of freedom.”

We looked out over our shared backyards.  They are mostly open lawn, but there is a weeping willow tree planted just to the side of my window.  It’s a pretty peaceful scene.  All in all, Chad probably needed it.

The problem with Gracie and Gerald visiting is that they have a daughter.  Bethany, who is six, may look like an angel, but she is a complete and total brat.  Last time they visited, she ransacked Chad’s house and kept us up all night screaming.

As the big cousin, Chad is also expected to entertain Bethany when the adults are busy (read: keep her from killing everyone within the vicinity, and vice-versa).  Since Chad and I are best friends (“and best friends help each other, Crystal!”), that means that I usually get stuck babysitting as well.  Oh, joy.

I looked back at Chad, who was still gazing absentmindedly over the yard.  The wind ruffled his chocolate-brown hair, and what with that and his faraway expression he seemed quite the woebegone hero.  He and I were in drama class at school together.  He seems better at applying the curriculum to real life than I am.

A few minutes later I heard my mom start fixing breakfast, so I said bye to Chad, ducked back into my room, and ran a brush through my hair.  Mom, like most moms, hates unbrushed hair, even this early in the morning.  My mom makes the best waffles in the world (yes, she uses a store-bought mix, but who cares?), so I definitely wanted to make sure I got one.

The prospect of a visit from Bethany was evidently weighing heavily on Chad’s mind, as I could still hear him in his room listening to music after breakfast.  An hour later.  I listened for a minute or two.  Then I shrugged, not knowing how to make him feel better, or if it was indeed possible.  I put my hair in a ponytail and settled down on my bed with a book.