Free Pale Phoenix by Kathryn Reiss Page A

your coat."
    As she obediently walked away, Abby spoke over her shoulder to Susannah. "Kids these days don't really know how to dance at all." Her voice was emphatic. "It's so dumb the way they just leap around. School dances are always so embarrassing."
    Susannah looked at her in surprise, but Miranda narrowed her eyes.
Kids these days?
As if Abby were so much older. "Ignore her," she hissed to her friend, and then trailed behind as her mother led them to the shoe department, where Abby selected a pair of pink high-tops and some bright yellow, fleece-lined waterproof boots.

    "I'm beginning to see what you mean," said Susannah a few days later when she and Miranda were making brownies after school. They had come to the Johnstons' house especially to avoid Abby, who always went straight home after school. "Half the time I think Abby might want to be friends, but as soon as I try to get close to her, she says something totally nasty or weird. I mean, she says hello in the hall, and she loaned me a pen when I left mine in my locker, but whenever I ask if she wants to eat lunch with us or something, it's like she's deliberately nasty." Susannah looked insulted. Miranda was sorry to see her friend's feelings hurt but was also secretly relieved. She couldn't bear it if Susannah fell for Abby as thoroughly as her parents had.
    Miranda measured out a cup of chopped walnuts and stirred them into the brownie mix. Susannah poured the batter into the buttered pan and slipped the pan into the oven. They sat at the table to wait. Susannah flicked back her blond ponytail and glanced at the clock. "Eighteen minutes. How can we wait that long?"
    Miranda opened her backpack and drew out the school newspaper. "Have you seen Dan's photos of the Prindle House? They turned out really well. I wish we could have stayed longer that day, but you know Abby." She slid the paper across the table. She and Abby had stayed only for the ceremony when the Student Council presented the money raised from the flea market to the Historical Preservation Society. A lot of the other students started work on the house right after the ceremony, following the directions of the carpenters, but Abby, who seemed bored by the whole preservation project, demanded they go home. Abby never let on she had been in the Prindle House before, and Miranda kept her secret.
    Susannah studied the photos Dan had taken. There was a shot of Mrs. Wainwright, as Historical Society President, surrounded by high school students and beaming as she held up their check. There was a picture of students setting to work to repair the staircase. Susannah was in the foreground, brandishing a hammer.
    "Hey, I'm famous!" She laughed, then jumped up to check on the brownies.
    Miranda was always hungry after school, especially on snowy days, and her hunger grew as the smell of warm chocolate filled the kitchen. She was enjoying the peace and warmth of the Johnstons' house—and the silence of no piano music—when the back door opened and Susannah's mother entered, wiping her snowy boots on the mat.
    "Hi, girls! Nice to see you, Mandy." She held the door for the frail, elderly woman with a cloud of white hair who came in slowly behind her, leaning with one gnarled hand on an aluminum-frame walker. The other arm was encased in a white cast.
    "Nonny!" cried Susannah, leaping up to hug her. "You're back!"
    Miranda grinned. She was very fond of Susannah's great-grandmother. The old woman had been born in Garnet, right in the house where Miranda's family now lived. Miranda enjoyed hearing stories about her house in the old days when Nonny was a little girl. Nonny was in her nineties now and growing increasingly frail. After her husband died last winter, Susannah's parents urged her to move in with them, and she did. She had recently been hospitalized with a badly broken arm after a fall on the icy front steps.
    Susannah patted Nonny's uninjured arm. "Is your suitcase in the car, Nonny? Shall I bring it