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What a difference a day ht the -next et serious about

checking on whether Mrs Burdock was dead It was just too ridiculous Besides, she had a lot to

do-school started in just over teeks At the beginning of June she had been sure summer would last

forever, sure that she would neversay, "Wow, this suone by so fast" And now here she stood

in one by so fast"

I need clothes, Mary-Lynnette thought And a new backpack, and notebooks, and some of those little

purple felt-tip pens And I need to s, too, because he won’t do it by himself

and Claudine will never make hiian and very pretty, with curly dark hair and sparklingdark eyes She was only ten years older than MaryLynnette, and she looked even younger She’d been

the fa helper when Mary Lynnette’s o MaryLynnette

liked her, but she was hopeless as a substitute

charge of Mark

So I don’t have tio over to Mrs B’s

She spent the day shopping It wasn’t until after dinner that she thought about Mrs Burdock again

She was helping to dear dishes out of the family room, where dinner was traditionally eaten in front of

the TV, when her father said, "I heard so today about Todd Akers and Vic Kimble"

"Those losers," Mark muttered

Mary-Lynnette said, "What?"

"They had some kind of accident over on Chiloquin Road-over between Hazel Green Creek and

Beavercreek"

"A car accident?" Mary-Lynnette said

"Well, this is the thing," her father said "Apparently there wasn’t any daht they’d been in an accident They showed up at ho

had happened to the a few hours" He looked

at Mark and Mary-Lynnette "How about that, guys?"

"It’s the UFOs!" Mark shouted iling

his plate

"UFOs are a crock," Mary-Lynnette said "Do youkno far the little green men would have

to travel-and there’s no suchthing as warp speed Whydo people have to s up when the

universe is just just blazing with incredible things that are real-"She stopped Her fa at

her oddly

"Actually Todd and Vic probably just got slass in

the sink Her father gririnned

"In a very real and literal sense," he said "We hope"

It was as Mary-Lynnette alking back to the faht struck her

Chiloquin Road was right off Kahneta, the road her own house was on The road Mrs B’s house was

onIt was only two miles from Burdock Farm to Chiloquin

There couldn’t be any connection Unless the girls were burying the little green man who’d abductedVic

and Todd

But it bothered her Two really strange things happening in the saht, in the same area In a tiny,

sleepy area that never saw any kind of excitement

I know, I’ll call Mrs B And she’ll be fine, and that’ll prove everything’s okay, and I’ll be able to laugh

about all this

But nobody answered at the Burdock house The phone rang and rang Nobody picked it up and the

answering rim but oddly calm She knehat

she had to do now

She snagged Mark as he was going up the stairs "I need to talk to you"

"Look, if this is about your Walk we have to do tonight" Mary-Lynnette looked at him "What about at all"

Mary-Lynnette groaned but let it go "Listen, Ineed you to helpweird

when I was on the hill" She explained as succinctly as possible "And now more weird stuff with Todd

and Vic," she said

Mark was shaking his head, looking at her in so like pity "Mare, Mare," he said kindly "You

really are crazy, you know"

"Yes," Mary-Lynnette said "It doesn’t ht"

"To do what?"

"To check things out I just want toseeMrs B If I can talk to her, I’ll feel better And if I can find

out what’s buried in that garden, I’ll feel a wholelotbetter"

"Maybe they were burying Sasquatch That government study in the Klamaths never did find him,

you know"

"Mark, you owe me for the Walkman For whatever happened to the Walknedly"Okay, I owe you But I’ to talk to those girls"

"You don’t have to talk to the else I want

youto do"

The sun was just setting They’d walked this roada hundred tiet to Mary-Lynnette’s hill-the only

difference tonight was that Mark was carryinga pair of pruning shears and Mary-Lynnette had pulled the

Rubylith filter off her flashlight

"You don’t reallythink they offed the old lady"

"No," Mary-Lynnette said candidly "I just want to put the world back where it belongs"

"You hat?"

"You kno you have a view of the way theworld is, but every so often you wonder, ’Oh,

myGod, what if it’s really different?’Like, ’What if I’m really adopted and the people I think are my

parentsaren’t e everything, and for a minute you

don’t knohat’s real Well, that’s how I feel right now, and I want to get rid of it I want my old world

back"

"You knohat’s scary?" Mark said "I think Iunderstand"

By the tiot to Burdock Farm, it was full dark Ahead of the over the far faintly red

Mary-Lynnette didn’t bother trying to deal withthe rickety gate She went to the place behind the

blackberry bushes where the picket fence had fallen flat

The farmhouse was like her own faerbread added

MaryLynnette thought the spindles and scallops and fretwork gave it a whimsical air-eccentric, like Mrs

Burdock Just now, as she was looking at one of the second-story s, the shadow of a ure fell on the roller blind

Good, Mary-Lynnette thought At least I know so back as they walked down the weedy path to the house

"You said I could hide"

"Okay Right Look, why don’t you take thoseshears and sort of go around back-"

"And look at the Sasquatch grave while I’? I don’t think so"

"Fine," Mary-Lynnette said calmly "Then hidesomewhere out here and hope they don’t see you