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here?”
    “Really?” I said. “That would be awesome.” Even Cassidy looked excited.
    “Roger and I thought we’d ask the president of Northwest Academy and his family to come, too. What do you think?”
    The weird kids—the ones that need friends? My smile waned. “Sure, why not?”
    “We did promise them we’d bring someone they could meet,” Darlene reminded me.
    “Who’s this? You promised we’d meet someone?” Cassidy asked.
    I’d forgotten I hadn’t told my sister anything about the loser teenagers. In hidden disgust, I walked past our host and sat on my bed. I’d let Darlene tell my sister the good news. I had all but blocked out the horror of Darlene’s explanation when I heard Cassidy’s massive intake of breath. With a grin, I caught her panicked look from the doorway just before she smiled happily at our host, obviously trying not to relay any of the warning flags I’m sure were popping up in her head.
    ***
    I prayed for rain. Like, big-time rain. You know—enough to cancel our sightseeing tour and put off the inevitable meeting as long as possible.
    Well, it did sprinkle, but not enough to keep us away from meeting the paragons of awkwardness. In fact, we were soon standing on the slightly damp grass in front of the Space Needle, watching them walk toward us.
    All right, I admit it. Anthony and Eleanor Russo weren’t that bad. I mean, sure, there was something about them that just didn’t sit right, something in their movements or the way they talked. I don’t know—it seemed stilted, not natural. Kind of Stepford-y, if you catch my drift. But other than that, I couldn’t complain.
    One thing was for sure, they were a whole lot cuter than I thought they’d be. Their whole family was this perfect, white-collar, yuppie-type family. They each had beautiful smiles and beautiful eyes and beautiful clothes.
    The parents were Ilene and Jonathan. Both of them looked really young, but they must’ve been in their early forties. And then there was Anthony, who went by Tony, who had just turned seventeen, and Eleanor—Nora—who we later found out was his twin sister.
    They were nice, too—almost too nice. I enjoyed talking to Nora the most, because she seemed just a little bit more real than Tony.
    “Have you ever been to Seattle before?” she asked as we boarded a large boat with wheels, part of our Ride the Ducks tour.
    “No. Does this vehicle really go in the water, too?”
    “You’ve never been on these before, have you?” She smiled at me, then climbed into a row and patted the bench next to her. “You’re going to love this tour. It’s really nice.”
    “Nice?” Crazy, yes, but nice?
    Cassidy and Tony sat down on the bench across the aisle.
    “Fun,” Nora amended. “It’ll be a lot of fun.”
    Now “fun” I understood. “Cool.”
    “Just wait. It’ll drive us all around Seattle, so you can see everything up and down the streets, and then it’ll drive right down a ramp into the ocean. That’s why they’re called ducks, because they’re on land and then the water. They’re really nice.”
    There was that word again—“nice.” Something just wasn’t right.
    Nora’s brother leaned across the narrow walkway between the two benches and asked, “You didn’t tell Claire about the part where we go all the way under the water, did you?”
    Huh? Under the water? I looked out the sides of the duck-slash-boat thing. There were no windows. Just open air, supports, and a roof. The boat would fill up with water in seconds. “Are you kidding?” I asked him.
    Tony’s eyes moved from Nora’s to mine. It was the first time I had made real eye contact with him.
    Wow. He’s—he’s really cute! And, um, close.
    Leaning over like he was, Tony was only about a foot from me. “It’s just for a couple of seconds. It’s not like you’ll drown or anything. You did read the brochure, right? It told you to make sure you only brought waterproof stuff on board.”
    What in