This, my children," Alistair said proudly, "was barbecue pork." Dan rapped his fingers against the latch. "Been out in the sun for a long time.

Amy Cahill didn't believe in omens. But black snow was falling, he earth was rumbling beneath her feet, her brother was meowing, and her uncle Alistair was prancing on the beach in pink pajamas. She had to admit, the signs were not promising.

Who needs bread crumbs," Dan replied, "when you have GPS?

When the guy turned around, Amy began stuttering. Silently. It was a feat only Amy could manage, and only Dan could notice. And it only happened in front of boys who looked like this one. He had brown hair and caramel-colored eyes, like Dan's friend Nick Santos, who made all the sixth-grade girls turn into blithering idiots when he looked their way--in fact, would even say Watch, lean make them turn into blithering idiots, and then he'd do it. Only older. "He. Is. Hot," Nellie said under her breath. "You too?" Dan hissed.

Once apon a time, Ian's dark, dreamy eyes had made her melt inside. The angle of his head, the wrinkle in the left corner of his lip—they'd obsessed her. And he'd been obsessed right back. Now all Amy wanted to do was throw her shoe at the screen.

The boy smiled -- mostly at Amy. "Sorry, her heart belongs to Ian Kabra," Dan said, except that something in her expression made him realize her heart didn't belong at all to Ian right now.

Rock star do not jump!" The launch was cutting sharply, its skipper calling out a phrase that bore no relationship to the English language as Amy knew it. "Rock star in a hurry!" Nellie replied, one foot on the boat's gunwale.