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"Fine. It's a bit overcast, but the weatherman guarantees us it will clear up shortly and warm up another ten degrees. I'm just wearing a sweatshirt and jeans," she said.

"So am I."

"Then you're ready.I'll be by in ten minutes to pick you up. Don't worry about supplies: I have everything we'll need in the car."

"Thank you."

I was so excited by the prospect of drawing and painting scenes in nature again that I nearly bowled Vicki over in the corridor. She had her arms filled with books she had just taken out of the library.

"Where are you going so fast?" she asked.

"Painting . . . with my teacher . . . sorry."

I hurried into our room and told Abby, who was curled up on her bed reading her social studies assignment.

"That's great," she said. I started to change from loafers to a pair of sneakers. "You know, I never noticed that string around your ankle," Abby remarked. "What is it?"

"A dime," I replied, and I told her why Nina had given it to me. "I know you think it seems silly, but . . ."

"No," she said, her face dark, "I don't. My father secretly practices voodoo. Remember, my grandmother was Haitian. I know some rituals and . . ." she said, getting up and going to the closet, "I have this." She plucked a garment out of her suitcase and unfolded it before me. It was a dark blue skirt. I thought there was nothing remarkable about it at first, and then she moved the skirt through her fingers until I saw the tiny nest woven with horsehair and pierced with two crossed roots sewn into the hem.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's for warding off evil. I'm saving this for a special occasion. I'll wear it when I fear I am in some sort of danger," she told me.

"I never saw that before, and I thought Nina had shown me just about everything in voodoo."

"Oh no," Abby said, laughing. "A moma can invent something new any time." She laughed. "I was hiding this from you because I didn't want you to think me strange, and here you are, wearing a dime on your ankle for good gris-gris." We laughed and hugged just as Samantha, Jacki, and Kate came wheeling Gisselle past our doorway.

"Look at them!" my twin cried, pointing. "See what happens when you don't have boys at your school."

Their laughter brought blood to both our faces.

"Your sister," Abby fumed. "One of these days I'm going to push her and that wheelchair over a cliff."

"You'll have to get in line," I told her, and we laughed again. Then I hurried out to wait for Miss Stevens.

She drove up a few minutes later in a brown jeep with the cloth top down, and I hopped in.

"I'm so glad you can come," she said.

"I'm glad you asked me."

She had her hair in a ponytail and the sleeves of her sweatshirt pushed up to her elbows. The sweatshirt looked like a veteran of many hours of painting, because it was streaked and spotted with just about every color of paint. In her beat-up jeans and sneakers, she looked hardly more than a year or two older than me.

"How do you like living at the Louella Clairborne House? Mrs. Penny is sweet, isn't she?"

"Yes. She's always jolly." After a moment I said, "I switched roommates."

"Oh?"

"I was rooming with my twin sister, Gisselle."

"You don't get along?" she asked, and then she smiled. "If you think I'm getting too personal . ."

"Oh no," I said, and I meant it. I remembered Grandmere Catherine used to tell me your first impressions about people usually prove to be the truest because your heart is the first to react. Right from the beginning I felt comfortable with Miss Stevens, and I believed I could trust her, if for no other reason than the fact that we shared a love of art.