LITMIR.BIZ

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woman lifted out a small battered table lamp. It had a purple base and a shade painted with bright flowers. Julie had thought it was pretty, but Mom had pointed out that the shade was cracked and the paint was chipping. No one had wanted to buy it, so they had thrown it away. Now the woman turned the lamp this way and that. She looked furtively over her shoulder and then stashed the lamp in her large bag. For a second she stared straight up at the window and looked right at Julie. Julie felt a prickle between her shoulder blades. She watched as the woman bent against the wind and disappeared around the corner.

      From the living room came the sound of Julie’s mom and sister arguing, their voices rising. Julie stared out at the empty street. The trash thief’s desperation seemed to linger in the air.

      chapter 2

      New Girl

      JULIE ARRIVED AT Jack London Elementary the next morning and joined her fifth-grade classmates on the playground. Tracy had been grumpy all through breakfast after Mom had said she could not drive to the high school. Julie was glad to be out in the fresh air with her friends, away from her moody sister.

      “Hey, did anyone watch Lost in Space?” T. J. asked. They chatted about their weekends, and T. J. made everyone laugh by singing theme songs from The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island. Julie sang along. In the middle of the theme from Gilligan’s Island, a tall, slender girl with long dark hair and a faded jacket edged up to their group, adding her voice to theirs. Her voice was tuneful, and she slid into perfect harmony with T. J.

      Julie was surprised not to know who the girl was; when she had run for student body president, with Joy as her vice president, they had learned almost everyone’s names. This girl should be in the school choir! Julie wanted to talk to her, but the bell rang and everyone raced off to line up before she got a chance to meet the stranger.

      When the class was seated, Julie’s teacher, Mrs. Duncan, walked into the room with the dark-haired girl at her side. “Attention please, everyone!” Mrs. Duncan said briskly. “I’d like to introduce a new girl to our class. Please welcome Carla Warner.”

      A new girl! Julie had been the new girl at school a year ago, and she remembered exactly how it felt—uncomfortable and a bit lonely. She raised her arm extra high when Mrs. Duncan asked who would show Carla around. As Carla slid into her chair, Julie scribbled a note in the corner of her notebook: Eat lunch with me?

      She ripped the corner off and folded it small. She wrote C.W. on it and handed it to Joy, who passed it to T. J., who handed it to the dark-haired girl when Mrs. Duncan was writing the math assignment on the blackboard. The new girl unfolded the note, scanned it, and looked questioningly at T. J., who jerked his thumb in Julie’s direction. Julie smiled and nodded, and Carla Warner beamed back at her. “Thanks!” she whispered. “I’d love to!” Then she blushed as the teacher whirled around from the board with a frown on her face. Mrs. Duncan was super-strict and piled on extra homework whenever she caught students passing notes. Julie stifled her giggle.

      At lunch Julie and Carla walked together to the cafeteria. They sat with T. J. and Joy. T. J. was complaining about how he’d had to babysit his younger sisters most of Saturday and didn’t get to play football with his friends, and then on Sunday it had rained. “My whole weekend was a washout,” he said morosely.

      “Mine too,” said Julie. “Nothing but housecleaning and listening to my crabby sister moan about everything.”

      Joy chimed in with the big news that her baby brother had learned to walk. Joy’s family had adopted a baby from the Vietnam Babylift. Everyone was excited to hear how well he was doing now. Joy communicated using graceful sign language and also spoke aloud in a voice that had once sounded strange and toneless to Julie. Julie liked the way Carla listened carefully, and the friendly way she smiled at Joy. Joy’s deafness made some kids uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem to bother Carla one bit.

      “What about you?” Joy asked Carla. “How was your weekend?”

      The new girl heaved a dramatic sigh. “Busy unpacking boxes from our move. It was soooo much work!”

      “Where do you live?”

      “Oh—not too far from here. Over by Alamo Square. You know those famous painted ladies?”

      “You mean those huge old Victorian houses, the ones painted all different colors?” asked T. J. “You live in one of those?”

      Julie’s dad had driven her past some of the brightly hued historic homes. He’d told her that some of the painted ladies had been written about in books and even put onto postcards.

      “We had a million boxes to unpack,” Carla told them. “It took all weekend, even with all of us helping. And we’re still not done.”

      “Do you have a big family?” asked Julie.

      Carla looked around at all of them and laughed. “Do I ever!”

      Did she ever! Julie listened in amazement as Carla told them all about her family: Her oldest brother didn’t live at home anymore because he was away in college. She had another older brother in high school, and a twin brother, and a little sister in kindergarten, and a baby sister, too—a year old and learning to walk, just like Joy’s brother.

      “Wow! That’s a lot of kids,” marveled Julie, feeling a small twist of envy.

      “We’re a crowd, all right,” Carla agreed cheerfully. “Three girls and three boys—just like the Brady Bunch, except that we have the same parents.” Then she told them that her parents were both doctors, but her mom was staying home full-time to care for the baby.

      “I love babies,” said Joy. She rummaged in her lunchbox and pulled out a chocolate cupcake packaged in cellophane. “What’s your baby sister’s name?”

      “Debbie,” Carla told her.

      T. J. laughed. “Hey—just like the ‘Little Debbie’ cupcake!” He pointed to the brand name on the cellophane wrapper, and they all laughed.

      “Where’s your twin brother? Whose class is he in?” asked T. J., looking around the cafeteria. “I want to meet him. He should come eat with us.”

      “Oh, Tim isn’t at this school,” Carla explained. “He…he goes to a private school.”

      “Too bad,” said T. J. “Well, maybe I can meet him after school. Does he like sports?”

      “Tim is great at sports. But he’s pretty busy after school.”

      “But how come you’re not going to private school?” T. J. asked.

      Carla told them that Tim was a pianist. “He’s always playing and composing stuff. And he’s always winning piano competitions. So he practices for hours after school every day, and he has to go to a school that has a special music program.”

      “That’s cool,” Julie said. “Which school?”

      “Well, he just started there today—like I just started here,” replied Carla. “I think it’s called Maxwell Academy.”

      “Hey—like the coffee!” Joy pointed out the window to the building across the street, which was plastered with a large billboard for Maxwell House Coffee.

      “Um, yeah,” said Carla with a grin, and they all laughed again.

      This new girl is really nice, thought Julie. It would be fun to visit her big house and get to know her large family. Julie was sure they would become good friends.

      chapter 3

      Spy Radio

      JULIE INVITED CARLA home after school. Joy walked with them as far as her street, and then Julie and Carla continued on together. Julie pushed open the door to Gladrags, her mother’s little shop on the ground floor beneath their apartment, and the bell above the door jangled. Carla stepped through the curtain of

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