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something bad, I got yelled at or punished. But not that time. After that, Mrs. Girardi and I got along just fine—until she had her heart attack.
    But I didn’t know if Mrs. Ashdale knew about what had happened, and I didn’t want to tell her. I was too embarrassed. So far I had done everything right at her house. I didn’t want her to think I was still the kind of person I used to be.
    â€œIt’s okay, Ethan,” Mrs. Ashdale said in a quiet voice. “The past is the past, remember?”
    That was what she and Mr. Ashdale had told me when I first came to live with them: the past is the past, and now is now. I’d thought, yeah, right. That’s the kind of stuff adults always say. But saying something is one thing, meaning it is another. When I looked at Mrs. Ashdale standing there on the front walk, I knew she meant it.
    â€œI had nothing to do with it,” I said to Officer Firelli. “I wasn’t even in town today.”
    â€œNo?” He looked like he didn’t believe me. Worse, he looked like he didn’t want to believe me. “What about your gang? What are they up to?”
    â€œHow would I know?” I said.
    Mrs. Ashdale gave me a warning look. I knew what that meant: keep your cool.
    â€œI mean, I haven’t seen any of those guys in almost a year,” I said. “I don’t hang out with them anymore.”
    â€œYou sure about that, Ethan?” Officer Firelli said. His tone was so snotty that I wanted to punch him in the face. But I didn’t. Instead I looked—really looked—at Mrs. Ashdale. She looked back at me. She looked deep into my eyes. And she nodded.
    â€œI’m sure,” I said. “If it’s okay with you”—and even if it wasn’t—“I’m going inside to start cleaning up.”
    Mrs. Ashdale squeezed my arm as I passed her. “I’ll be right in,” she said.
    Mrs. Ashdale hadn’t been kidding. The place was the biggest mess I had ever seen. Every drawer had been pulled out and emptied onto the floor. Every cupboard had been ransacked. Every bookshelf had been cleaned out. Mattresses, pillows, sheets and blankets had been tossed to the floor. The big calendar on the fridge where Mrs. Ashdale kept track of everyone’s appointments and activities was lying on the kitchen floor.
    â€œAre you sure nothing is missing?” I asked Mrs. Ashdale when she finally came inside.
    â€œI guess we’ll find out when we start putting everything back,” she said.
    We got to work. When Meaghan showed up with Alan and Tricia, they helped too. So did Mr. Ashdale when he got home. It took most of the night, but we finally got everything back where it belonged.
    â€œThere’s nothing missing,” Mrs. Ashdale said as she sank down onto the sofa.
    â€œYou must have interrupted them,” I said.
    â€œEither that or they were looking for something, Anna,” Mr. Ashdale said.
    â€œLike what?” Mrs. Ashdale said. “We don’t have anything worth stealing, Bill.”
    It was true. The house was okay, and there was always plenty to eat. But the furniture was kind of beat-up, the TV was old, the DVD player one of those cheapies from a discount store and the computer was so ancient it couldn’t even run half the software that we used at the youth center. You’d have to be nuts to think you could find anything worth stealing at the Ashdales’ house.
    At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

Chapter Four
    I had to force myself to choke down the pizza that Mr. Ashdale had ordered as a treat, to reward Alan and Tricia and me for working so hard to get the house back in order. I couldn’t sleep that night either. I tossed and turned and looked enviously at Alan, who always seemed to fall into a deep sleep the moment his head hit the pillow. I felt terrible about having lied to Mrs. Ashdale.
    When I got put into foster care, my social