Switch

comes out on Wednesday. How about that?'

'Okay.' He didn't sound convinced, only resigned. 'But I'm hungry now, Paige.'

'Cereal. Or have a snack from the drawer.'

'Mama says no snacks from the drawer until after

breakfast.'

'Aren't there any cereal bars in the drawer?' I bit back

another yawn. If I didn't get back to sleep in the next ten

minutes I was not going to be a happy camper.

'Yesss…' Even Arthur knew where I was going with this,

but he sounded like it might be too good to be true.

'Have one of those. They're cereal, right?'

'Can I tel Mama you said it was okay?'

'Can I tel Mama you said it was okay?'

'Sure.' It wouldn't be the first time she'd holer at me for giving the kid permission to do something she'd have

refused. On the other hand, this was the woman who'd

alowed me to go to school in a pair of hand-me-down,

slip-on Candie's shoes in the sixth grade and bought me

my first package of rubbers in the tenth. She was a

different sort of mother to Arthur than she'd been to me.

'Now let me go back to sleep, okay?'

'Okay. Bye, Paige.'

'Bye.'

'I love you,' my little brother said before I could hang up.

It wasn't the first time he'd ever said it, but suddenly the

memory of how he'd smeled as a baby washed over me

with enough force to push my eyelids open like snapped-

open blinds. How his hair had been so soft against my lips

when I kissed his little baby head, and how the heavy

weight of him had filed my arms and lap. How I used to

hold him while I watched hour after hour of bad TV, just

because he was so smal and sweet. Just because he loved

me.

me.

'I love you, too, buddy. I'l see you on Wednesday.'

He had a seven-year-old's social graces and didn't say

goodbye again, just hung up. I put the phone back in the

cradle of its receiver and my head back in the cradle of my

pilow, but sleep had vanished and there was no getting it

back.

With a groan, I looked at the clock. Almost eight. And I'd

gone to sleep, what, just before six this morning? God. I

was so going to pay that kid back one day, maybe when

he was a teenager and prone to sleeping as late as he

could…yeah. I'd wake him up.

Unfortunately, my revenge was far-flung and I was stil

awake. I stretched and sat up, waiting for the rush and boil

of acid stomach or the pound of a headache, but aside

from a gnawing hunger, I felt al right. At least until I heard

the muted beep from my cel phone, which I'd left