A huge white Victorian house perched on an oversized lot. Yellow trim. A swing on the wraparound porch.

Two women. The first, gray haired and wide hipped, coming forward to greet me. The younger one's dour eyes following me, her arms crossed, braced for trouble.

Walking up a long narrow flight of stairs. The older woman —a nurse, who introduced herself as Mrs. Talbot— chirping a guided tour that my fuzzy brain couldn't follow.

A bedroom, white and yellow, decorated with daisies, smelling of hair gel.

On the far side of the room, a twin bed with a quilt yanked over the bunched-up sheets. The walls over the bed decorated with pages ripped from teen magazines. The dresser covered with makeup tubes and bottles. Only the tiny desk bare.

My side of the room was a sterile mirror image —same bed, same dresser, same tiny desk, all wiped clean of personality.

Time for Dad and Aunt Lauren to go. Mrs. Talbot explained I wouldn't see them for a couple of days because I needed time to "acclimate" to my new "environment." Like a pet in a new home.

Hugging Aunt Lauren. Pretending I didn't see the tears in her eyes.

An awkward embrace from Dad. He mumbled that he'd stay in town, and he would come to visit as soon as they let him. Then he pressed a roll of twenties into my hand as he kissed the top of my head.

Mrs. Talbot telling me they'd put my things away, since I was probably tired. Just crawl into bed. The blind closing. Room going dark. Falling back to sleep.

My father's voice waking me. Room completely dark now, black outside. Night.

Dad silhouetted in the doorway. The younger nurse —-Miss Van Dop—behind him, face set in disapproval. My father moving to my bedside and pressing something soft into my arms. "We forgot Ozzie. I wasn't sure you'd sleep without him." The koala bear had been on a shelf in my room for two years, banished from my bed when I'd outgrown him. But I took him and buried my nose in his ratty fake fur that smelled of home.

I awoke to the wheezy sleep breathing of the girl in the next bed. I looked over but saw only a form under the quilt.

As I turned onto my back, hot tears slid down my cheeks. Not homesickness. Shame. Embarrassment. Humiliation.

I'd scared Aunt Lauren and Dad. They'd had to scramble to figure out what to do with me. What was wrong with me. How to fix it.

And school . . .

My cheeks burned hotter than my tears. How many kids had heard me screaming? Peeked in that classroom while I'd been fighting the teachers and babbling about being chased by melted custodians. Seen me being taken away strapped to a stretcher.

Anyone who'd missed the drama would have heard about it. Everyone would know that Chloe Saunders had lost it. That she was nuts, crazy, locked up with the rest of the loonies.

Even if they let me return to school, I didn't think I'd ever have the guts to go back.

Five

I WOKE TO THE CLINK-CLINK of metal hangers. A blond girl flipped through clothes that I was pretty sure were mine, hung up yesterday by Mrs. Talbot.

"Hello," I said.

She turned and smiled. "Nice stuff. Good labels."

"I'm Chloe."

"Liz. Like Lizzie McGuire." She waved at an old and faded magazine cutout on her wall. "Except, I don't go by Lizzie, 'cause I think it sounds kind of —" she lowered her voice, as if not to offend the picture Lizzie "—babyish."

She continued talking, but I didn't hear it because all I could think was, What's wrong with her? If she was at Lyle House, there was something wrong with her. Some "mental condition."

She didn't look crazy. Her long hair was brushed into a gleaming ponytail. She wore Guess jeans and a Gap T-shirt. If I didn't know better, I'd think I'd woken up in a boarding school.

She kept talking. Maybe that was a sign.

She seemed harmless enough, though. She'd have to be, wouldn't she? They wouldn't put anyone dangerous in here. Or really crazy.

Oh no, Chloe. They don't put any really crazy people in here. Just the ones who hear voices and see burned-up janitors and fight with teachers.

My stomach started to ache.

"Come on," she said. "Breakfast's in five minutes, and they get real snippy if you're late." Liz put out a hand as I opened a dresser drawer. "You can wear your pajamas down to breakfast. The guys eat lunch and dinner with us, but they have breakfast later, so we get some privacy."

"Guys?"

"Simon, Derek, and Peter."

'The house is coed?"

"Uh-huh." She pursed her lips in the mirror and picked off a dry flake. "We all share the bottom floor, but the top one is divided."

She leaned out the door and showed me how short the hall was. "They get the other side. There's not even a joining door. Like we'd sneak over there at night if we could." She giggled. "Well, Tori would. And I might, if there was someone worth sneaking over for. Tori has dibs on Simon."

She scrutinized me in the mirror. "You might like Peter. He's cute but way too young for me. He's thirteen. Almost fourteen, I think."

"I'm fifteen."

She bit her lip. "Oh, geez. Um, anyway, Peter won't be around much longer. I heard he's going home soon." She paused. "Fifteen, huh? What grade?"

"Ninth."

"Same as Tori. I'm in tenth, like Simon, Derek, and Rae. I think Simon and Rae are still fifteen, though. And did I say I love your hair? I wanted to do that, with blue streaks, but my mom said . . ."

Liz kept up the commentary as we headed downstairs, moving on to the whole cast of characters. There was Dr. Gill, the psychologist, but she only came for her office hours, as did the tutor, Ms. Wang.

I'd met two of the three nurses. Mrs. Talbot —the older woman, whom Liz proclaimed "really nice," and the younger Miss Van Dop, who was, she whispered, "not so nice." The third nurse, Mrs. Abdo, worked weekends, giving the others each a day off. They lived in and looked after us. They sounded more like the housemothers I'd heard boarding school kids talk about, but Liz called them nurses.

At the bottom of the stairs, the overpowering stink of lemon cleaner hit me. It smelled like Gran's house. Even Dad never seemed comfortable in his mother's immaculate house, under the glare that said you'd better not expect any birthday money if you spilled your soda on the white leather sofa. One look in this living room, though, and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was as clean as Gran's —the carpet spotless, the wood gleaming—but it had a worn, comfortable look that invited you to curl up on the sofa.

It was also painted the favored color for Lyle House —a pale yellow this time. Pillows covered the dark blue sofa and two rocking chairs. An old grandfather clock ticked in the corner. Every end table held a vase of daisies or daffodils. Bright and cheerful. Too bright and cheerful, really, like this bed-and-breakfast near Syracuse where Aunt Lauren and I stayed last fall—so desperate to be homey that it seemed more a stage set than someone's house.

No different from this, I guess —a business eager to convince you it wasn't a business, to make you feel at home. To make you forget you were in a place for crazy kids.

Liz stopped me outside the dining room so we could peek in.

On one side of the table sat a tall girl with short dark hair. "That's Tori. Victoria, but she likes Tori. With an i. She's my best friend. She gets moody, and I've heard that's why she's here, but I think she's fine." She jerked her chin toward the other person at the table —a pretty, copper-skinned girl with long dark curls. 'That's Rachelle. Rae. She has this 'thing' for fire."

I stared at the girl. Thing for fire? Did that mean she set fires? I thought this place was supposed to be safe.