When I got home, Stenway was still there, so I went straight up to my room and pulled out my dictionary of Supers. I jotted a quick note about the box incident down under Mr. Left’s page, and then finished my homework. I kept the door open, trying to hear the conversation downstairs. All I could really pick out was the higher-pitched sounds of Sydney’s voice, and the lower rumbles of Stenway’s. He seemed to be talking more, but there was a definite kind of form to the conversation. Syd would have a short little bit, then he would talk for a while, and repeat.

  I tuned out for a while, until I heard chairs scraping along the floor. I started to walk down stairs, but I heard Sydney voice again. This time I could hear her words. “T.J. was really annoyed at you earlier.”

  “That’s quite common.”

  “We went to go visit that housekeeper of yours, and she wasn’t there.”

  “I imagine she had an errand, or went with her son to the park, or something. She's very close to her family still.”

  “But no, no-one was there. We asked the desk lady and she said no-one by that name had lived there in the last five years. T.J. was very peeved.”

  “Hmm. Interesting.”

  Stenway didn’t sound very interested, but I was. I slipped back up into my room and sat on my bed, stewing, waiting for the door to shut behind our guest. Finally, I heard the little mumbles cut off and the door closed. I swung my feet off of my bed and hit the floor hard. Thudding down each step, I glared at Sydney as I got to the kitchen. “Just what are you doing with that… that guy?” I shoved a chair out of my way as I walked to the sink. I slammed the faucet up and filled a glass.

  “What?” Syd spun lazily around, smiling. If she’d been in a movie, there would have been a hazy glow around her, and some sappy music in the background.

  “Why did you tell him about that? You are so stupid!”

  “About the housekeeper? T.J., you wanted to know what had happened!”

  “Yeah but you didn’t even figure that out, did you? Gosh Sydney, mind your own business.”

  “I was there too, if you remember.” Syd glared at me. “I had just as much right to be curious as you did.”

  “Yeah but now he knows that we know that she’s not there.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  I really debated for a moment. I was so tempted to tell her everything, just to justify my reaction, but it wasn’t going to be worth it. “I just… like telling people what I think, myself. I don’t want them to get the wrong impression.”

  “I’m pretty sure I didn’t give Stenway the wrong impression.” Syd rolled her eyes.

  “Just… finish your stupid project.”

  Sydney flopped back into her chair and started writing. “Seriously? You're in charge now? Get out of here. Or make dinner.”

  I glared at Syd as she turned back to write up her interview. I made dinner in silence, but spent the rest of the night up in my room. She didn’t talk to me at all, thankfully. Why couldn’t she just mind her own business?

  A small part of my brain told me that I was being unreasonable: we had a question that Stenway could answer and Sydney had only asked it. But it was my question, my problem, my doubts. I hated it when things happened out of order. I wasn’t ready to ask that question yet. Besides, people never said things the way I would and got all the wrong ideas. Syd did this all the time; last year I told her about a new kid at my school who was really smart and he’d helped me with a problem once, and she told the story to his sister and made it sound like I liked the guy. Charlie hasn’t talked to me to this day.

  The next afternoon, I went to feed the cats after church. I trudged up the sidewalk, kicking at the little lips of the pavement where the slabs of concrete met. The kitchen door was locked, which felt like a fatal blow. I did not want to see Stenway until I had gotten my thoughts all together about him and the wrong address, but it looked like I didn’t have a choice.

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  I really needed to talk to Ms. Higley about a house key.

  I went around to the front door and knocked. My fist barely hit the wood for the third time when the door swung open quickly. “Ms. Kelly! Come in.” Mr. Left ushered me inside and shut the door gently behind me. “Kitchen door locked again? We really must speak to Ms. Higley about a house key.” He started to walk with me. “How are you and your sister doing?”

  “I think her interview went well.”

  “Interview? Where did she interview?”

  “Her interview with Stenway.” I looked up at him.

  “Ah. Stenway.” Mr. Left looked down at me searchingly as he opened the kitchen door. “You’re doing well, then?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Glad to hear it. I apologize for rushing off, but I do have some… matters to attend to.” He smiled. “Ms. Higley should be back tomorrow so things can get back to normal around here. Thank you, Ms. Kelly.” He winked as he turned. I heard his footsteps hurry back down the hallway. I fed the cats, singing to them a little bit, thinking about Mr. Left.

  I never understood his moods. I guess, I never understood how he could switch back and forth between such different moods. When he was with us in the kitchen, he would be very relaxed and even jokey, but then his mood would change and he would be very formal and proper. There didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to it. It had been nice of him to ask after Sydney, but then he was clueless about her interview with Stenway. I guess that isn’t moodiness exactly, but seemed similar to me.

  The strangeness of the whole situation didn’t really come to me until the next day, after school in the drugstore. I’d finished telling them about my brief conversation with Mr. Left the day before. The fellows were all gathered around, and had moved on, listening to Clive tell about the box on Saturday. I listened half-heartedly, flipping through a comic, when it hit me. Clive had just gotten to the part when we tied the disappearance of the box to Mr. Left’s presumed clairvoyance when I butted in.

  “Peach, what exactly does it mean to be clairvoyant?”

  “Excuse me, girl. Pipe down.” Clive glared at me.

  “Wait, Clive, I’m serious. Peach?”

  Peach rooted around in his knapsack, finally pulling out a thick library book. He turned back to me. “Clairvoyance is technically a subdivision of extrasensory perception. ESP is, more or less, gaining information by a means other than our known senses.”

  “Meaning?”

  He flipped open to a page and read it off to me. “Clairvoyance is the acquisition of knowledge through a non-sensory method. It differs from other forms of ESP in that its focus is knowledge. Learning things, you see. Also, ESP users are often able to practice another subdivision of ESP besides their specialty.”

  Chris folded his arms. “So essentially, we don’t fully understand his powers.”

  “We don’t understand them at all!” I looked around at all the fellows. “We have loose data, nothing tying it together.”

  “If I may.” Peach waved his pencil in the air. “Donny and I have been looking into ESP lately, and I think I have at least half of a theory.”

  Chris raised an eyebrow. “Shoot.”

  “There’s a branch of ESP called clair-empathy. The user can feel the emotion of others, basically.” Peach turned to me. “You had two highly emotional events within roughly twenty-four hours: finding the box was gone, and then the fight with your sister. The first was connected to an item that Mr. Left supposedly touched, more than once, if you count the book that housed the box, which also happened to be an item that you touched. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that he was able to pick up on your fight with your sister the next day.”

  “So you say that since Clive and I freaked out about him moving the box…”

  “Who freaked?” Clive shoved his hands onto his hips and glared at me.

  “He linked to me, or something, and then continued to feel my emotions the next day?”

  “Perhaps not feel all of them, but at least sense the strong emotion.” Peach shrugged. “And the box, or whatever item in any given scenario, may be relevant too.”

  “It seems to hang together, all right.” Chris nodded at the group as a whole. “Great work. The important thing to do would be to test our theory. We need to see if that attachment still exists.” The fellows immediately began to plan out options and ideas for testing the ‘link.’ Personally, I wasn’t so sure. For one thing, the emotions I had felt had been very real, and very strong. I don’t think there would be a way to recreate that kind of emotion out of thin air. Also, I was not ready to be a lab rat. Dad used to bring them home when their research first started, and I always felt so badly for them. And also, there was always the chance that Stenway had actually been the one to remove the box, not Mr. Left.

  When the fellows weren’t paying attention, I slipped out of the drugstore and headed home. I had homework to do, and besides, anything I had to say would most likely go unheard. It was nice being necessary to their plans, though. A few months ago, if I’d walked out on a meeting, the fellows would have put me on probation faster than you could snap your fingers.

  I still had to feed the cats, so I caught the bus to the Left mansion. The kitchen door was unlocked, probably Ms. Higley’s doing, but I didn’t see anyone while I fed. Truthfully, I wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. I hurried home, thinking about my social studies homework that I still had to finish.