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Nick began to pace, losing hihts of doom "This is bad

This is really, really bad"

"I’m sure they’re all okay," Allie said, and repeated it, as if that would make it so "I’hed at theood one!" This was no laughing matter It made both Nick and Allie furious

"Who are you?" Allie demanded "Why are you here?"

"Did you see the accident?" Nick added

"No," he said, choosing to answer Nick’s question only "But I heard it I went up to look"

"What did you see?"

The kid shrugged "Lots of stuff"

"Were the other people in the cars all right?"

The kid turned and kicked a stone, angrily "Why does it oing, and anyway there’s nothing you can do about it, so just forget about it, okay?"

Nick threw his hands up "This is nuts! Why are we even talking to this kid? We have to get up there and find out what happened!"

"Can you just calm down for a second?"

"I am cal…off…about the whole situation Whatever it was, it all seemed centered on this oddly dressed, freckle-faced boy

"Can you take us to your hoot a telly-phone"

"Oh, that’s just great!" said Nick

Allie turned on hi" Allie took a good long look at the freckled boy again His clothes The way he held his he had said--not so much what he said, but the way he had said it This is my place… now it’s your place, too If her suspicions were correct, this situation was even weirder than she had thought

"Where do you live?" Allie asked hi have you been ‘here’?"

The Freckle-boy’s ears went red "I don’t remember"

By now Nick had co

"And your name?" Allie asked

He couldn’t even look her in the eye He looked down, shaking his head "I haven’t needed one for a long time So I lost it"

"Whoa …" said Nick

"Yeah," said Allie "Major whoa"

"It’s okay," said the boy "I got used to it You will, too You’ll see It’s not so bad"

There were so er to misery-- but for this boy, Allie could only feel pity What must it have been like to be lost alone in the woods for years, afraid to leave?

"Do you reot here?" she asked

"Eleven," he told them

"Hmm," said Nick "You still look eleven to me"

"I am," said the boy

Allie decided to call him Lief, since they had found him in the forest, and he blushed at the name as if she had kissed him Then Lief led the with a recklessness that not even the most skilled rock climbers would dare show Allie refused to admit how terrified she was by the clih for both of theetting hurt!" he co an accident, if you’re going to fall off a mountain and die?"

They reached the road, but found very little evidence of the accident Just a few tiny bits of glass and n or bad? Neither Allie nor Nick was sure

"Things are different up here," Lief said "Different from the forest, I mean

You better conored him and stepped onto the shoulder of the road It felt funny beneath her feet Kind of soft and spongy She had seen road signs before that said SOFT SHOULDER, so she figured that’s what it ," Lief said "Bad things happen when you do"

Cars and trucks flew by, one every five or six seconds Nick was the first one to put up his hands and start waving to flag down help, and Allie joined hile car stopped They didn’t even slon A wake of wind followed each passing car It tickled Allie’s skin, and her insides as well Lief waited just by the edge of the cliff, pacing back and forth "You’re not gonna like it up here! You’ll see!"