At first Park thought he was imagining it. He kept getting this feeling that she was looking at him, but whenever he looked over at her, her face was down.

She was reading his comics.

# Park #

Today the girl was wearing a giant men's shirt with seashells all over it. The collar must have been really big, like disco-big, because she'd cut it, and it was fraying. She had a man's necktie wrapped around her ponytail like a big polyester ribbon. She looked ridiculous.

He finally realized that she was staring at his lap. Not in a gross way. She was looking at his comics -- he could see her eyes moving.

That made it sound bad, but it wasn't. It might even be the best thing about her. It kind of reminded Park of the way artists draw Jean Grey sometimes when she's using her telepathy, with her eyes all blacked out and alien.

Park didn't know that anyone with red hair could have brown eyes. (He didn't know that anyone could have hair that red. Or skin that white.) The new girl's eyes were darker than his mom's, really dark, almost like holes in her face.

And she was looking at his comics.

Park felt like he should say something to her. He always felt like he should say something to her, even if it was just "hello" or "excuse me." But he'd gone too long without saying anything since the first time he'd cursed at her, and now it was all just irrevocably weird. For an hour a day. Thirty minutes on the way to school, thirty minutes back.

# Eleanor #

Park didn't say anything. He just held his comics open wider and turned the pages more slowly.

When the little kids stormed in after school, her mom lost her temper over something stupid -- Ben and Mouse fighting over a toy -- and she pushed them all out the back door, Eleanor included.

Eleanor was so startled to be outside that she stood on the back stoop for a second, staring down at Richie's Rottweiler. He'd named the dog Tonya after his ex-wife. She was supposed to be a real man-eater, Tonya -- Tonya the dog -- but Eleanor had never seen her more than half awake.

Her mom looked tired when Eleanor got home. Like more tired than usual. Hard and crumbling at the edges.

She usually took her bath right after school, before Richie got home. It took a lot of the stress out of not having a bathroom door, especially since somebody'd torn down the sheet.

Eleanor tried knocking on the door. "Mom! Let me back in. I haven't even taken a bath yet."

Her mom ignored her.

The little kids were already out on the playground. The new house was right next door to an elementary school -- the school where Ben and Mouse and Maisie went -- and the playground was just beyond their backyard.

Eleanor didn't know what else to do, so she walked out to where she could see Ben, by the swing set, and sat on one of the swings. It was finally jacket weather. Eleanor wished she had a jacket.

"God. You too? Why do you guys call him that?" She tried not to sound angry.

"What are you supposed to do when it gets too cold to play outside?" she asked Ben. He was taking Matchbox cars out of his pockets and lining them up in the dirt. "Last year," he said, "Dad made us go to bed at 7:30."

Ben shrugged. "I guess because he's married to Mom."

"I don't know," Ben said flatly. "What's that supposed to feel like?"

"Yeah, but" -- Eleanor ran her hands up and down the swing chains, then smelled them -- "we never used to call him that. Do you feel like he's your dad?"

She didn't answer him, so he went back to setting up his cars. He needed a haircut, his strawberry-blond hair was curling almost to his collar. He was wearing an old T-shirt of Eleanor's and a pair of corduroy pants that their mom had cut off into shorts. He was almost too old for all this, for cars and parks -- eleven. The other boys his age played basketball all night or hung out in groups at the edge of the playground. Eleanor hoped that Ben was a late bloomer. There was no room in that house to be a teenager.

"He likes it when we call him Dad," Ben said, still lining up the cars.

Eleanor looked out at the playground. Mouse was playing with a bunch of kids who had a soccer ball. Maisie must have taken the baby somewhere with her friends…

It used to be Eleanor who was stuck with the baby all the time. She wouldn't even mind watching him now, it would give her something to do -- but Maisie didn't want Eleanor's help.

"It'll be like a slumber party," Mrs Hickman said to Eleanor the first night she made up the couch. Mrs Hickman -- Tammy -- knew Eleanor's mom from high school. There was a photo over the TV of the Hickmans' wedding. Eleanor's mom was the maid of honor -- in a dark green dress, with a white flower in her hair.

At first, her mom would call Eleanor at the Hickmans' almost every day after school. After a few months, the calls stopped. It turned out that Richie hadn't paid the phone bill, and it got disconnected. But Eleanor didn't know that for a while.

"Living with those people."

The sun was a few inches above the horizon, and Eleanor looked hard at it.

Eleanor was only supposed to stay with them for a few days, maybe a week. Just until Richie cooled down and let her come home.

The Hickmans had started out nice. But then they got tired.

"What was what like?"

"Sort of." Technically, she hadn't had to share the Hickmans' living room with anyone else.

"Did you have your own room?"

"Okay," she said. Terrible. Lonely. Better than here.

"Were they nice?" he asked.

"Yeah… yeah. They were nice. Not as nice as you."

"Were there other kids?"

"What was it like?" Ben asked.

"Yeah. Really little kids. Three of them."

"She's not ours."

"Andy, it's not her fault."

"We should call the state," Mr Hickman kept telling his wife. They thought Eleanor couldn't hear them, but their bedroom was right over the living room. "This can't go on, Tammy."

"She's no trouble."

"I'm not saying it's her fault, I'm just saying we didn't sign on for this."

Eleanor tried to be even less trouble. She practiced being in a room without leaving any clues that she'd been there. She never turned on the TV or asked to use the phone. She never asked for seconds at dinner. She never asked Tammy and Mr Hickman for anything -- and they'd never had a teenager, so it didn't occur to them that there might be anything she might need. She was glad that they didn't know her birthday.

"We thought you were gone," Ben said, pushing a car into the dirt. He looked like somebody who didn't want to cry.

She looked around again for Maisie and found her sitting over where the older boys were playing basketball. Eleanor recognized most of the boys from the bus. That stupid Asian kid was there, jumping higher than she would have guessed he could. He was wearing long black shorts and a T-shirt that said "Madness."

"Oh ye of little faith," Eleanor said, kicking her swing into action.

"I'm out of here," Eleanor told Ben, stepping off the swing and pushing down the top of his head. "But not gone or anything. Don't get your panties in a bunch."

She walked back into the house and rushed through the kitchen before her mom could say anything. Richie was in the living room. Eleanor walked between him and the TV, eyes straight ahead. She wished she had a jacket.