Mrs. Dreams looked up. "It upsets you, doesn't it, that your mother is gone?"

  At this, Lucy stood up, blood rushing to her face. "What is your problem? You can't take me out of class and question me. I'm not some kind of specimen!" She reached for her social studies book and notebook. "I'm going!"

  "Sit down, Lucy Moon." The voice was icy. Mrs. Dreams's smile became small, tucking itself into the corners of her mouth, and her eyes narrowed, the blue fish swimming into the back of their bowls.

  Lucy sat down.

  Mrs. Dreams pulled a shoe box out from underneath her desk and handed it to Lucy. She nodded to Lucy to open it.

  Lucy jerked off the lid. The shoe box was filled, end to end, with "Free Wiggins Hill!" postcards.

  "So?" Lucy demanded.

  "Read them," said Mrs. Dreams, with an ironic smile (blink, blink).

  Lucy turned them over one by one—Lucy Moon. Lucy Moon. Lucy Moon. They were all signed Lucy Moon. Some had notes: It's mine! Lucy Moon. I want my hill back— waaaaaa! Lucy Moon. There were several postcards signed Lucy Moon the Protest Princess.

  Lucy felt the blood drain from her face. Could the day get any worse? She didn't need this! Lucy tried to tell herself she didn't care about these idiots sending postcards, yet other thoughts crept in: all along, kids had sent these as a joke? The kids in this school must hate her.

  But Lucy steadied herself. The big question was why Mrs. Dreams showed her the postcards. It was hardly necessary. It had to be a test. Lucy decided then that she couldn't let Mrs. Dreams see her reaction. She met Mrs. Dreams's watery gaze.

  "They're not all mine," Lucy said evenly.

  "I thought that you might respond like this," said Mrs. Dreams, taking the shoe box out of Lucy's hands. She appeared to be enjoying herself, savoring the moment. "... A personality such as yours . . ." Mrs. Dreams didn't finish the thought.

  Lucy desperately wanted to talk back, but she clamped her lips shut. This might be one of those times her mom warned her about, where a person should listen to find out what they were up against; otherwise they might make the situation worse.

  Mrs. Dreams spoke in a voice as sweet and light as powdered sugar: "Okay, Lucy, I think you realize that you've gotten many of our students into a heap of trouble. So the administration felt they needed to do something about it and asked me to meet with you. Here's what I think: you have antisocial tendencies, and it seems that you dramatize. Situations in life aren't as important as you make them out to be, Lucy Moon. I also bet you're a bit of a conspiracy theorist." Mrs. Dreams beamed at her again (blink, blink, blink).

  "It's not true," said Lucy.

  "Yes, well," Mrs. Dreams said, "unfortunately, at this point you're much too combative for counseling. The simple truth is that until you realize you need counseling, there's not much I can do."

  Mrs. Dreams swiveled to put the notebook and the pencil on her desk, pulled a business card out of a drawer, and then swiveled back again. "So, since counseling is out of the question, here are your options according to Principal Adams. He says you have a choice between a week's suspension from school, which will go on your permanent school record, or volunteering for the spring session of Youth Action—someone has been kind enough to nominate you. If you choose Youth Action, you will also be in detention after school until spring break. Principal Adams has phoned your father."

  Mrs. Dreams handed Lucy the business card. Lucy read it:

  Mrs. Myra Mudd

  Cleaning Service Professional

  Youth Action organizer

  President, The Tiny Tims & the Healing Power of Dickens

  Then the card listed several phone numbers, a fax number, and an address.

  "If you haven't called Mrs. Mudd by the end of the week, Principal Adams will assume you're choosing suspension. You’ll want to discuss this with your father."

  Then Mrs. Dreams got up from her swivel chair and gave Lucy a hug and a squeeze. Mrs. Dreams smelled like peanut butter! Who was this person? Lucy nearly dropped her books.

  The next minute, Lucy was standing outside the door under bright fluorescent lights in the hallway.

  Lucy slammed the wall with her fist. She hated this place.

  Settle down, she told herself. She needed to figure things out.

  First, detention didn't make any sense to Lucy, since there was only one "Free Wiggins Hill!" postcard campaign and she'd already served detention for it. (And it wasn't her fault a school full of goons decided to sign her name to all those postcards.) Also, if she was getting detention because of the vandalism, well, why didn't Mrs. Dreams say so? The police hadn't asked her any more questions.

  Shouldn't the opinion of the police count for something? And anyway, what did vandalism on Wiggins Hill have to do with the junior high?

  And to include Youth Action with detention did not seem fair. Youth Action ran on weekends, January through April. Youth Action sounded like an honor, because kids were "nominated" to participate. But Lucy had heard the rumors. This was "youth" and "action" as envisioned by adults. Want to pick up trash? Youth Action. Want to fix fences? Youth Action. Want to polish the gymnasium floor using hot wax and your tongue? Youth Action. Yeah, anyone between the ages often and eighteen could sign up voluntarily, without waiting for an official "nomination," but no one ever did. Everyone knew Youth Action existed for "troubled youth," with the idea of getting bad kids so bone tired they had no energy for "monkey business." And just for the record, Lucy was not a monkey.

  Lucy found her dad waiting for her after school.

  "Lucy?" he called as soon as the screen door slammed shut.

  Here it comes, thought Lucy. The day was going from bad to worse, but at least with her dad she knew what to expect: Lucy braced herself for nonstop talking, a good grounding, and being forced to write some sort of letter. She didn't bother to take off her coat. Lucy walked into the living room, sat down on the couch, and stared at her mittened hands.

  "I'm confused, Lucy," he started.

  He sounded confused. Surprised, Lucy raised her eyes from her mittens.

  "Did you know I got a call from Principal Adams today?" he said.

  Lucy nodded her head and waited.

  "Well, I don't understand it, and I'm hoping there's a perfectly logical explanation. Would you please explain?"

  "I didn't do anything," said Lucy.

  "So you didn't send any more postcards?"

  "No," said Lucy.

  "And you didn't tell the other kids to send more postcards?"

  "Well, I wanted to," Lucy admitted. "But it was over after I got detention and wrote that letter."

  "I don't understand this," said her dad. He looked her in the eyes. "I'm choosing to believe you, Lucy. I hope you aren't concealing something." He sighed. "It's easier not to tell me things, isn't it?"

  Lucy opened her mouth, but her dad put his hand up.

  "Don't answer that. I know it's true. I blame myself for it. For a long time, I was pretty content to let your mother raise you. But now I want to be part of your life. Only, I don't know how to get you to believe it. You don't trust me."

  Whatever Lucy had expected, it wasn't this.

  "You know how you talk to your mom when you come home from the bakery?" he continued.

  Lucy shrugged noncommittally.

  "I want you to try that with me."

  Lucy didn't know about that! She pulled off her mittens and scarf. She knew he'd been trying the last couple of months. In the last few weeks he'd even started making her lunches, and cooked a dinner from her mom's vegetarian cookbook almost every night. But it wasn't like she could just swap one parent for the other, especially not when he'd been so Dad for so many years.

  "You can't replace Mom," said Lucy. "I don't want a mom, anyway."

  "I know," he said.

  "If I tell you things, you make rules about them," said Lucy. "You know you do!"

  "I still might," he said. He looked down at the floor.

  Then he said quietly: "Please try, Lucy. Help me. I don't know what else to do other than ask. I love you— honestly."

  Lucy watched her dad rub bis hands together, and decided to try to open the lid a little further than she thought was safe. "The school has a shoe box full of postcards signed 'Lucy Moon,' only, I didn't sign any of them, Dad. I don't think they think I signed them, either. But a bunch of kids didn't take the cards seriously. They sent them to make fun of me."

  Her dad didn't say anything. Then he clucked his tongue and said, "Well, they can't threaten suspension for that."

  "Yeah," said Lucy sarcastically. "I would think it would be punishment enough having everybody hate me like that. You should have seen what they wrote on the postcards about me. Kids hate me, Dad."

  Her dad gazed at her for what seemed like a long time, and Lucy was glad he didn't say, "They don't hate you," or "You don't mean that." Instead, he said: "That was wrong of them to do that." He paused. Then he said, "I'm going to call Mrs. Rossignol and see if Zoë can come for an overnight. I think it's time for an exception to that rule about no sleepovers on weeknights."

  He got up and went to the phone.

  Zoë was exactly what Lucy needed. It felt like old times— before all the tiny disagreements had started, and before her mom had turned into a dork. Zoë got angry about what had happened to Lucy. ("That's why there weren't more kids called into the office? Those losers!") Lucy even whispered the worst of what the postcards had said. Somehow this led into an enormous pillow fight. ("I'll give you a Protest Princess!" "Think sledders are babies? Take this!") Yes, Lucy's dad stopped the fight. And when

  Zoë and Lucy stayed up discussing the intricacies of a choice between Youth Action and detention, or suspension, Lucy's dad interrupted. ("It's eleven o'clock, girls. Go to bed!") But Lucy didn't mind.

  After Lucy returned home from the bakery the next day, she went straight into the living room.

  "Dad, I'm going to choose Youth Action and detention, okay?" she said.

  Her dad put down his magazine and pulled the lever on his lounger, sitting up. "You don't want a suspension on your record?" He smiled a sad smile.

  "Yeah." Lucy nodded her head as convincingly as possible. "I mean, what if it gets in the way of going to the Peace Corps or college or something? What if they look at that kind of stuff and I didn't even do anything?"

  Lucy couldn't tell her dad the true reason. She couldn't! He wouldn't let her do it if he knew why. Lucy and Zoë agreed that if Lucy got suspended, she'd get labeled, and bad things happened to labeled kids. Lucy knew one kid who ended up in a foster home, and there was another who was transferred to a school with military-style discipline. What if a social worker started sniffing around their family? What would a social worker think of Lucy's mom being gone so long? Personally, Lucy didn't think either she or her dad could handle going through that. So she wanted to do it—Youth Action and detention—and keep a low profile. It seemed like the best choice.

  Her dad ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't think you should have to choose at all. I can't think of what you did wrong."

  "Stirred up a hornet's nest?" offered Lucy.

  He smiled. "Maybe." He continued: "Don't call Mrs. Mudd yet. I'm going to have to have a talk with Principal Adams. Enough is enough. If I have my way, you won't be in Youth Action or detention at all."

  He was going to defend her? Lucy grinned at him. "Thanks, Dad," she said. If her dad got involved, maybe she wouldn't have to be punished at all. Sometimes adults needed to talk to adults to get things changed, and this did seem to be one of those times.

  That night, Lucy called Sam. She'd been calling him a lot lately. But Mrs. Shipman said Sam was practicing his trombone and couldn't be disturbed. Lucy told Mrs. Shipman to tell Sam she called, and hung up the phone.

  Then Lucy called Zoë on the walkie-talkie and made plans to come over.

  But before she dashed out the door, Lucy glanced at her dad in the living room. He sat in his lounger with the footrest up. He wasn't reading a magazine. Instead, he tapped his fingers together while staring across the room. Lucy knew he was thinking of her. Lucy had spent most of her life thinking that a single glance would tell everything anyone needed to know about her dad—her dad had his lounger, his magazines, and the man was happy. Now Lucy knew how wrong she'd been. It was like saying you knew a town after driving through it once at twenty-five miles an hour.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  For the next several days, Lucy Moon came home from the bakery and found her dad waiting for her. As soon as Lucy hung up her coat, her dad would give her the day's progress report. On Wednesday, he told Lucy that her punishment had been postponed until his appointment with Principal Adams on Friday. "Principal Adams said he liked to see parents involved in a kid's education," he said. On Thursday, her dad pointed at the two suits laid out on the living room couch—a brown tweed and a dark blue—and asked Lucy which he should wear to the appointment. She chose the dark blue because it seemed serious, and Turtle Rock's Grim Reaper (the undertaker) always wore dark blue. On Friday, Lucy rushed home from the Rossignol Bakery to find out what happened. She found her dad leaned back in the lounger, turning the pages of a magazine, but staring out the window.

  "Well?" said Lucy finally.

  "Not as willing to listen as he said he'd be," her dad said.

  That was that, thought Lucy. She sagged onto the couch. The refrigerator rattled on and began its wheezy whirring. It seemed particularly loud. "I better call Mrs. Mudd," she said.

  "No," said her dad, yanking the handle of his lounger so the chair snapped upright. "You're not calling Mrs. Mudd. Not yet." He paused. "It just means I've got more work to do. That's what you would do." He looked at her. "Right?"

  Lucy blinked. "Yeah," she said slowly.

  Lucy was up in her room doing homework when she heard her dad make the first phone call. "Hello, Harold," she heard her dad say. "I've been having some trouble with the junior high school—something I thought the school board should know. It's about my daughter, Lucy."

  Of course, Lucy and Zoë talked about everything in great detail. They were both amazed that three weeks into school, Lucy still hadn't been called into Principal Adams's office and told to start detention and Youth Action immediately, or be suspended. For Lucy, every day felt like another day of freedom, and she knew this was all due to her dad.

  Frankly, her dad's industriousness left Lucy slack jawed. He'd made at least a dozen calls, followed up suggestions, and wrote letters. He made lists of ideas, and after he tried them, he ticked them off. The upshot was— Lucy felt hope. "Believe me," said Lucy to Zoë. "If my dad can change like this, world peace is a piece of cake."

  And there was a side benefit to her dad being on the phone all the time—the phone didn't ring! Her mom's messages bypassed the answering machine and went straight into voice mail.

  Zoë frowned when Lucy told her this. "You mean your mom is still calling?"

  "Oh, yeah," said Lucy. "Last night I heard Dad talking to her about me."

  Zoë didn't say anything.

  "I'm feeling pretty good," Lucy continued. "It was the ringing that bugged me. With no phone ringing it's easier to pretend she doesn't exist."

  Zoë's eyes widened, but she didn't say anything until they'd walked for a block or two. Then Zoë said weakly, "Good."

  "It is good." Lucy nodded her head.

  It might have seemed that everything was good for Lucy during this period. It was true to a certain extent. But in the week following the police interviews in Principal Adams's office, the atmosphere at the junior high had soured.

  One day, Lucy got to school, opened her locker, and a cloud of talcum powder billowed out into the hallway. Lucy coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. When the cloud settled, the inside of her locker reminded Lucy of a snow globe, with drifts of powder shifting against her schoolbooks and gym clothes. Everything smelled like a baby's bottom.

  "Oh," said Lucy. "Someone's sad idea of a joke." She meant it to sound sarcastic, so Zoë would laugh. But instead, the words fell flat.

  Immediately, Zoë offered to go and tell a teacher, but Lucy stopped her. "No! It'll die down."

  The rest of the week continued in the same way: Lucy found a dissected frog in the pocket of her orange puffy coat. Someone threw grape soda pop all over the front of her locker. Thomas Duke and Ben Furley took special joy in running at. breakneck speed toward Lucy and trying to knock her green-and-yellow hat off her head. "Score!" they yelled, when they succeeded. Lucy's braids were tugged so routinely that Lucy took to tucking them inside her sweater in the hallways. The talcum powder continued to be a problem. It got in, around, and over everything: it slid between the pages of books, ruining the bindings; it plugged the ends of pens; and when Lucy used her gym shoes, talcum powder puffed.

  To Lucy, the worst was a foot-long editorial in permanent marker that appeared on the bottom half of her locker. It was titled: "Why You Should Grow Up, Lucy Moon." And it closed by saying: "What did you accomplish, Lucy Moon? You got a bunch of people in trouble for dumb sledding! Good for you!’” Though Lucy could not understand why no one stopped this person, who must've been sitting cross-legged in front of Lucy's locker for minutes, she found those last sentences sticking in her head. What had she accomplished?

  It'll blow over, Lucy told herself. It'll blow over.

  And true enough, each week, the taunts, messages, and surprise gifts came less frequently.

  Still, one thing did not blow over. Sam had disappeared from Lucy's life sometime after winter break. It happened so gradually that she wasn't sure when it began. But now it was clear enough. Sam didn't talk to Lucy in the hallways or in class. He didn't call, either. When Lucy called him, one of his parents would answer the phone and say he was busy (practicing his trombone again, or at his martial arts class, or shoveling out his grandparents' driveway). No one had seen him at the Rossignol Bakery for weeks.