It was while I was wondering about this that a shadow fell over my face, and suddenly I could no longer feel the warmth of the sun. I opened my eyes, and found myself staring up at Sleepy.

"What," he demanded in the same somnambulistic manner in which he did everything, "do you think you're doing?"

I could feel my cheeks getting red. And it wasn't because of the sun, either.

"Getting a ride home with Michael," I said meekly. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Michael, over on the driver's side of the car, had finally found the keys, and had frozen with them in his hand, the driver side door open.

"No, you're not," Sleepy said.

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe he was doing this to me. I was so embarrassed, I thought I was going to die.

"Slee - " I started to say, then stopped myself just in time. "Jake," I said, under my breath. "Cut it out."

"No," Jake said. "You cut it out. You remember what Mom said."

Mom. He'd called my mother Mom. What was going on here?

I lowered my sunglasses and looked past Jake. Gina, along with Dopey and Doc, stood on the far side of the parking lot, leaning against the side of the Rambler and staring in my direction.

Gina. She'd told on me. She'd told on me to Sleepy. I couldn't believe it.

"Slee - I mean, Jake," I said. "I appreciate your concern. I really do. But I can take care of myself - "

"No." And to my surprise, he wrapped a hand around my arm, and started to pull. He was surprisingly strong, for someone who gave the impression of being so tired all the time. "You're coming home with us. Sorry, man." This last he said to Michael. "She's supposed to ride home with me today."

Michael, however, did not appear to find this apology a satisfactory one. He put down both our backpacks, and, slipping his car keys back into his trouser pocket, took a step toward Sleepy.

"I don't think," Michael said in a hard voice I'd never heard him use before, "the lady wants to go with you."

The lady? What lady? Then I realized with a start that Michael meant me. I was the lady!

"I don't care what she wants," Sleepy said. His voice wasn't hard at all. It was simply very matter-of-fact. "She's not getting into a car with you, and that's the end of it."

"I don't think so." Michael took another step toward Sleepy, and that's when I saw that both of his hands were curled into fists.

Fists! Michael was going to fight Sleepy! Over me!

This was very exciting. I'd never had two boys get into a fight over me before. The fact that one of the boys was my stepbrother, however, and held about as much romantic appeal for me as Max, the family dog, somewhat dampened my enthusiasm.

And Michael wasn't much of a catch, either, when you actually thought about it, being a potential murderer, and all.

Oh, why did I have to have such a couple of losers fighting over me? Why couldn't Matt Damon and Ben Affleck fight over me? Now that would be truly excellent.

"Look, buddy," Sleepy said, noticing Michael's fists. "You don't want to mess with me, okay? I'm just going to take my sister here" - he dragged me off the hood of the car - "and go. Got that?"

Sister? Stepsister! Stepsister! God, why can't anyone keep it straight?

"Suze," Michael said. He hadn't taken his eyes off Sleepy. "Just get in the car, okay?"

Well, this, I decided, had gone on long enough. Not only was I completely embarrassed, but I was getting hot, too. That afternoon sun was no joke. Suddenly, I just didn't have any ghost-busting energy left in me.

Plus I guess I didn't want to see anybody get hurt over something so completely lame.

"Look," I said to Michael. "I better go with him. Some other time, okay?"

Michael finally looked away from Sleepy. His gaze, when it landed on me, was odd. It was like he wasn't even really seeing me.

"Fine," he said.

Then he got into his car without another word, and started the engine.

God, I thought. Be a baby about it, why don't you?

"I'll call you when I get home," I shouted to Michael, though I doubt he heard me through the rolled up windows. It would be difficult, I realized, to wring a confession out of him over the phone, but not, I thought, impossible.

Michael's tires squealed on the hot asphalt as he drove away.

"What a freakin' jerk," Sleepy muttered as he dragged me across the parking lot. Only he didn't say freakin'. Or jerk. "And you want to go out with this guy?"

I said sullenly, "We're just friends."

"Yeah," Sleepy said. "Right."

"You," Dopey said to me as Sleepy and I approached the Rambler, "are so busted."

This was one of his favorite things to say to me. He said it, as a matter of fact, whenever he had the slightest chance.

"Not technically, Brad," Doc said thoughtfully. "You see, she didn't actually get into the car with him. And that was what she was forbidden to do. Get into a car with Michael Meducci."

"Shut up, all of you," Sleepy said, heading for the driver's seat. "And get in."

Gina, I noticed, slipped automatically into the front passenger seat. Apparently, she didn't believe that when Sleepy had told us all to shut up, he meant her, too, since she went, "How about we stop somewhere for ice cream on the way home?"

She was trying, I knew, to get me not to be mad at her. As if a chocolate-dipped twist would help. Actually, it sort of would, now that I thought about it.

"Sounds good to me," Sleepy said.

Dopey, on my right - as usual, I'd ended up sitting on the hump in the middle of the backseat - muttered, "I don't know what you see in that headcase Meducci anyway."

Doc said, "Oh, that's easy. Females of any species tend to select the male partner who is best able to provide for her and any offspring which might result from their coupling. Michael Meducci, being a good deal more intelligent than most of his classmates, amply fulfills that role, in addition to which he has what is considered, by Western standards of beauty, an outstanding physique - if what I've overheard Gina and Suze saying counts for anything. Since he is likely to pass on these favorable genetic components to his children, he is irresistible to breeding females everywhere - at least, discerning ones like Suze."

There was silence in the car … the kind of silence that usually followed one of Doc's speeches.

Then Gina said reverently, "They really should move you up a grade, David."

"Oh, they've offered," Doc replied, cheerfully, "but while my intellect might be evolved for a boy my age, my growth is somewhat retarded. I felt it was inadvisable to thrust myself into a population of males much larger than I, who might be threatened by my superior intelligence."

"In other words," Sleepy translated for Gina's benefit, "we didn't want him getting his butt kicked by the bigger kids."

Then he started the car, and we roared out of the parking lot at the usual high rate of speed that Sleepy, in spite of my private nickname for him, chooses to employ.

I was trying to figure out how I could make it clear that it wasn't so much that I wanted to breed with Michael Meducci, as get him to confess to having killed the RLS Angels, when Gina went, "God, Jake, drive much?"

Which was sort of amusing since Gina, whose parents very wisely won't let her near their car, has never driven before in her life. But then I looked up and saw what she meant. We were approaching the front gates to the school, which were set at the base of a sloping hill that opened out into a busy intersection, at a higher rate of speed than was usual, even for Sleepy.

"Yeah, Jake," Dopey said from beside me on the backseat. "Slow down, you maniac."

I knew Dopey was only trying to make himself look good in front of Gina, but he did have a point: Sleepy was going way too fast.

"It's not a race," I said, and Doc started to say something about how Jake's endorphins had probably kicked in, due to his fight with me and his near-fight with Michael, and that that would account for his sudden case of lead foot....

At least until Jake said, in tones that weren't in the least drowsy, "I can't slow down. The brakes … the brakes aren't working."

This sounded interesting. I leaned forward. I guess I thought Jake was trying to scare us.

Then I saw the speed with which we were approaching the intersection in front of the school. This was no joke. We were about to plunge into four lanes of heavy traffic.

"Get out!" Jake yelled at us.

At first I didn't know what he meant. Then I saw Gina struggling to undo her seatbelt, and I knew.

But it was too late. We had already started down the dip that led past the gates, and onto the highway. If we jumped now, we'd be as dead as we were going to be the minute we plunged into those four lanes of oncoming traffic. At least if we stayed in the car, we'd have the questionable protection of the Rambler's steel walls around us -

Jake leaned on the horn, swearing loudly. Gina covered her eyes. Doc flung his arms around me, burying his face in my lap, and Dopey, to my great surprise, began to scream like a girl, very close to my ear....

Then we were sailing down the hill, speeding past a very surprised woman in a Volvo station wagon and then a stunned-looking Japanese couple in a Mercedes, both of whom managed to slam on their brakes just in time to keep from barreling into us.

We weren't so lucky with the traffic in the far two lanes, however. As we went flying across the highway, a tractor trailer with the words Tom Cat emblazoned on the front grid came bearing down on us, its horn blaring. The words Tom Cat loomed closer and closer, until suddenly I couldn't see them anymore because they were above the roof of the car....