Chapter One

“We’re moving where?” I asked again, just to make sure that what my mom suddenly announced wasn’t just in my mind.

“We’re moving to Jostens, Maine!” My mom clapped her hands happily.

I stared back with a disgusted frown. How could this have possibly happened? And for it to have happened now? Last year for Prom, I was one of the princesses and I was sure that this year—my senior year—that I would win Prom Queen. But now that we were moving out to a little hick town in the middle of nowhere? I could totally kiss goodbye to that!

“Oh, you’ll fit in fine,” Mom tried unsuccessfully to reassure me.

Ha! It was easy for her to say. Mom was a doctor so she fit in anywhere and everyone loved her.

“It will work out for the best, Claire,” my little brother, Oliver, told me with a smile.

Little brothers are known for being pests to their older sisters but I couldn’t see Oliver that way at all. We’ve always been two peas in a pod. We never fought and despite the fact that I wanted to rip out someone’s arm out at that moment, it wouldn’t be Oliver’s. Instead, I eyed my mom with threats in my eyes.

However, I merely shook my head and grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter.

“We’ll talk more when we come home, Mom.”

Oliver and I waved goodbye and we both got into the car and headed to school to deliver our friends the news.

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Three days later, I set my box of stuffed animals in the middle of my room.

My mom gave Ollie and I two days to pack. I call it two days to mourn. My friends cried and promised to send e-mails—who sends letters nowadays? Can you say snail mail?—and pictures. As angry as I was at my mom, I couldn’t help not noticing the smile on her face when we arrived. The house was an two-story white Victorian that was on Towne Street. Can that name be any more common?

“So, how do you like it?” Mom startled me and wrung her hands nervously. I had a feeling that my opinion really mattered. Oliver came into my room and sat on my bed. “You’ll be registering in a new school tomorrow and it has about 800 students so you won’t feel lost and overwhelmed…” She stopped babbling. “You do like it, don’t you?”

I swallowed the bulge in my throat that made me want to cry from my mom’s anxiousness. “It’s great, Mom.”

She nodded once and walked out of my room to clean up the kitchen.

“We’ll be going to school together,” Oliver said quietly.

I brightened up, “Really?”

“Yes, because the population is so small, high school is grades seven through twelve.”

I squealed and hugged him. Since we were five years apart, I never went to school with him except for elementary school—which didn’t really count anyways.

“What do you really think about me going to school with you?” Oliver asked.

“Come on, kid,” I said. “I’m going to love seeing you around school. You know you’re my favorite person in the whole world.”

“Okay,” Oliver smiled. A dimple appeared on his left cheek and I fought back to not poke him in his cheek. “We’re starting school tomorrow.”

I grimaced. “So soon?”

“Better now than never.”

“I like never,” I nodded.

Oliver laughed. “Do you want me to continue making breakfast in the morning?”

I glared at him. “If you stopped just because we moved here, I may have to kill you.”

He put his hands up in protest. “Okay, okay, Claire.”

Ollie walked out of my room and I sighed a bit happily. “Brothers.”

“The usual, Claire?” His head popped into my room.

“Duh!” I rolled my eyes.