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Chapter 1

AF TER

keep telling myself it will all get easier next week.
I Well . . . not all. The hardest part, I’m stuck with forever. But

at least once school starts, I won’t have to patrol this blazing
playground every day like a sweaty prison guard, saving my
siblings from death by monkey bars while Dad’s at work.
Then again, who uses the word “easy” to describe junior

high?
Manic giggling pulls my attention back to Janie and Budge—
scrambling onto the zip line together like they want me to panic.
“One at a time, guys!”

“Pleeease, Morgan!” Janie leans dizzyingly far off the plat-
form, her broomstraw hair sweeping the wood chips below.
“We’re practicing our trapeze act.”
Familiar fear squirms in my gut. There’s a good chance

they’re planning to construct an actual trapeze. Janie’s seven-
year-old brain is the source of all fun—for five-year-old Budge.
For their twelve-year-old sister?
“It’s too dangerous.”

Janie glares back at me.