Silence filled the upstairs of the house thickly as smoke and it was just as difficult to breathe. I knew that the only rooms on the second floor were Sean and Levi's plus a spare. Mr. and Mrs. Walters' room was off the living room on the ground floor.

So no one came up here to live. Only to wait.

I was focused on Mrs. Walter's hand clamped around mine, tugging me further down the hallway towards the boys' rooms. She pressed a finger to her lips to keep me quiet and we walked on tip-toes like we might actually disturb someone sleeping. I had given up protesting by that time.

Earlier, Mrs. Walters' conspiratorial smile and Mr. Walters' good natured chuckle and 'I'll stay here and work through some of this wonderful food' had battered through my refusals. I had tried to say no. Several times. Whatever Levi had written, I didn't want to know - good, bad, whatever - it spelled sleepless nights and heartache already.

But saying no to adults wasn't the same as telling a boy my age I'd rather walk than let him drive me.

As we climbed the stairs, the stillness that reigned above came down to meet us and was smothering me be the time we reached the bedrooms. Their doors were directly opposite from one another.I was afraid of those doors. I was afraid of what I'd see if she opened them. I hadn't been upstairs since before the brothers were taken. Fear became an acid in my stomach and muscles, alternately burning and freezing. If Mrs. Walters hadn't been holding onto me, I would have curled up in a shaking ball on the carpet.

She reached over to Sean's door to lay her hand on it. Her eyes and face glowed with love. "I wanted a moment just the two of us, Brooklyn. You should know that I figured something out about you a long time ago, but I never told my husband. I think it should be our secret. Not even Sean and Levi know." She paused and I wished I could throw up. There were no secrets I wanted the two of us to keep. "Do you know what it is?"

I shook my head.

"I know you have a crush on Sean. Why wouldn't you? I bet a lot of girls do."

"I have a crush on..." I wasn't sure what bothered me most, that she would bring it up or use the present tense. Sure I loved him, I loved them both, but it could hardly be called a crush at this point.

"Yes. I can see it. I always could whenever you were around him. Sean was always the cute one and of course as a year older than you, he must seem so cool and mature."

"Yeah, he would be a senior this year, while Levi and I are only juniors," I said. I wanted to break through her mania of referring to them like they were here, but still twelve and thirteen. I wanted to shake her up, so I threw out the words 'senior' and 'junior,' hoping she would let me go.

Mrs. Walters gazed at Sean's door, a ticking nerve making her eyelid twitch. "But you should know," she continued, "that he would never fall for a girl like you. I really don't want to hurt your feelings. It's not that you aren't pretty or smart. It's just that Sean will need someone really special to catch his heart. I just don't see you as the one and I wanted you to know."

"You've obviously thought a lot about this," I whispered. I wasn't about to admit how underhanded her words were and how deeply they cut me.

"Ready for the diary? Come on," she said, and with no other warning, she turned to the other door and opened it softly. At first she leaned in and glanced around. She was half way inside before I noticed she had dropped my hand. As I started to back away, though, she smiled at me. Her lips went wide, showing her teeth, but her eyes were flat and dead. "Come on, don't be shy."

"Maybe some other time, my mother will be expecting me home soon," I said, faltering.

"Oh, pish-posh. And to think, it's still the same, everything is as he left it. He could walk in any minute and pick up his homework where he left off." She had my arm. She was pulling me in Levi's room. I kept my eyes averted; whatever was in there was not anything I wanted to see. "Don't be such a baby! Come on."

I stumbled at his doorway. His welcome mat had caught my foot. I could have drawn the skull and cross-bones on it blindfolded, I knew it so well. The American flag still flew in the corner and Star Wars posters clung to the walls. His last Lego project, the black tower from the Lord of the Rings, stood almost completed on his desk with papers, colored pencils and loose pieces of Lego strewn about at its base. His bed was the only unusual thing in his room. It had been made and the comforter smoothed out as I had never seen it. I turned in a slow circle, taking the room in.

Then it occurred to me that the smell had changed. Normal, I supposed. You can't recall smells, just like you can't recall the actual feeling of pain. Colors and sights, sounds and even taste to some extent, but you can only describe scents.

When I would come over before, Levi's room was a little bit stuffy. He kept his door closed so he wouldn't be bothered while he worked on his projects. The smell was a mix of dirty socks, fresh sweat and the bubble gum he would chew while toying with electronics or his Legos. It was a warm, boyish smell of pencil shavings and candy.

Not anymore. At first, I thought it was unaired, but there was more than that - something dank and musty lay under the surface.

Mrs. Walters had me sit on the bed, wrinkling the impeccable blanket. The moldy smell grew stronger. "Finding this diary is just the funniest story," she confided in a whisper.

I tried to smile. No doubt the story was positively hysterical.

"Do you know I can feel Levi when he comes to visit?" she continued. "Not often, but every once in a while I know he's walking around, especially in here. Sean never comes, but that's always been his nature."

I couldn't be sure if the temperature actually dropped or if it was me losing my body heat. The hairs on my arms and neck prickled. "Mrs. Walters-"

"I wish you would call me Jane," she said. "You know you are like family to us? To me and Thomas? Because you are."

"Jane, I..." I couldn't make the words come out.

"Listen, I want you to know that you can always count on us. If you ever need anything, anything at all, you can come to us. You could practically be Sean and Levi's sister, you fit in with us so well. We all think the world of you. And, God forbid, if anything should ever happen to your mother, we will be here for you. If something happens to her, you come to us. Understand?"

Something might happen to my mother? My heart lurched. "I should go, I'm keeping you busy here," I whispered. I tried to slide off the bed, but she stopped me.

"I haven't gotten to show you the diary, yet." She took a notebook off the nightstand and placed it in my lap. The bright green cover was labelled 'Social Studies' in Levi's jittery cursive. "We never opened it because we assumed it was for his class. Then the day before last, I could sense him up here. He didn't stay long, because I came as soon as I noticed. He never touched or moved anything before, but I found this notebook was on the top of his school things. Isn't that amazing? He wanted me to read it, and I think he wanted you to see it. Look at the first page."

Could anything inside be worse than the muddy handprint? Probably. With shaking fingers, I turned back the cover.

Just Social Studies notes. I sighed in relief. There was nothing horrible at all. No blood, no mold, no scratches. Nothing even embarrassingly private. Just boring notes.

Mrs. Walters must have misunderstood my sigh. "Don't be frustrated, look, it turns into his diary when he gets bored in class. Right there." She pointed about three quarters of the way down.

Jeff jumped me behind the cafeteria at recess. Brooklyn pulled him off and kicked his knee. I got in a punch to his stomach and he left me alone after that. Sean saw, I'm sure, but he didn't help me. Brooklyn is my best friend. I trust her.

I remembered that day, his words took me back there with absolute clarity. Jeff had started a fight by jumping on Levi's back. I had stepped in when I saw Levi go down and Jeff pounding on him, but hadn't realized that Sean was nearby.

"You see?" Mrs. Walters asked. "You two are best friends, practically brother and sister already."

The fact that Levi's real brother hadn't bothered to get involved didn't seem to upset her. "Did you read the whole thing?" I asked.

"Just the first few pages. I like going over it slowly."

I began flipping through it. The notebook couldn't be full of notes, the school year had only begun right before the kidnapping. However, there were pages and pages of writing. Story ideas, places he wanted to go, people he liked and hated. Alicia's name almost never appeared, except at the end.

Alicia asked for me and Sean to go to her house this afternoon. She wants to show us something.

It was the last entry, but there was no date. I checked the page before it.

Science test for tomorrow - to study.

Then, all I could see was the dead-alive donkey staring at me through the window, my science test untouched on my desk. The day of the test - Alicia had asked them to go to her house the day they disappeared. She had wanted to show them something. Except she had always told everyone that playing together had been Sean and Levi's idea.

I couldn't swallow, my mouth had gone dry. I lifted the notebook to close it. A scrap of paper fell from between the pages onto my legs. Mrs. Walters was staring off at the walls and hadn't noticed. With one hand I reached for the paper and palmed it.

"Mrs. Walters? I mean, Jane? Could I borrow this? I would love to read it and then I can bring it back in a few days."

"Well, if it's just for a couple of days," she said. She stood to go.

With her back to me, I checked the small piece of paper. The writing was in block letters and off kilter as though a child or someone in the dark had written it.

meet me at cuppa joes

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