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go.”
    I felt the ground begin to slip under me. “You can’t just take over the library.” Johnny leaving, Jed’s still-unknown secret, Mrs. Berns with train tickets. It was too much. I wasn’t going to surrender my refuge too. Not the library. “You can’t steal my job for a week.”
    â€œI can. In fact, I have to.” She pulled a sheet of paper from her purse and slapped it on the front desk. I was getting mighty sick of that trick. “The city bylaws require that the library have at least two full-time employees. You have exceeded the six-month period in which to find a second full-time worker. Mrs. Berns and I together can count as one, but only if I put in some seat time. Soon as you return from Portland, you better start hiring, you hear? We’ll find the money somewhere, at least until I can get that bylaw changed. In the meanwhile, I have to work sixty hours in the next seven days, or you will have to pay back some funding.”
    My legs went out from under me. Fortunately, I fell into the front desk chair. “There’s nothing to give back. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
    She shrugged. “Bureaucracy. Be glad I’m telling you now. So, your choices are to stay behind and work with me, or you can go on an all-paid vacation to Portland. You pick.”
    My stomach gurgled unpleasantly. But when she put it like that … wait. A thought wiggled its way to the front of my brain. “Why would you help me to go to Portland? And help the library to keep its funding?”
    After all, Kennie was the woman who put the I in selfish . Since I’d met her last May, she’d had a series of ill-fated start-ups, including a coffee table that could be used as a coffin once the owner died, a home bikini-waxing service, and a refurbished marital aids company called Come Again. She was the epitome of the lone-wolf entrepreneur, always looking for her angle, always putting herself first.
    She winked. “Us girls got to stick together.”
    I started to reevaluate my image of her. The process made a grinding noise. Fortunately, I didn’t need to try for long.
    â€œOh,” she continued, glancing down at her blood-red nails, “coincidentally, I also have a package I need you to deliver to my friend Carlos. He lives in Seattle. You’ll pass right through it on your train trip.”
    â€œAha!” That offer had the stink of Bad Idea over it, a smell somewhere between the odor of tequila shots and the scent of fresh tattoo ink. “You want me to do something for you. That makes more sense. Why can’t you mail it yourself?”
    â€œI could. It’s biggish, though. Expensive to mail.”
    The Bad Idea smell grew stronger. “What’s in the package?”
    â€œNone of your beeswax.”
    I glanced from Mrs. Berns to Kennie. They both shared a smug expression that I didn’t like, and it triggered a realization. “Wait wait wait a minute. You two are the most disorganized people I’ve ever met. How did you manage all this—booking a train trip, library staffing—in the span of a few hours? And Mrs. Berns, why aren’t you worried about transporting a mystery package for Kennie?”
    Mrs. Berns held her hands in the air, the picture of innocence. “I follow the don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Kept me out of jail more than once. As to going to Portland, there’s not much I won’t do for one point five men. When something matters, you make it happen.”
    Kennie nodded in agreement. “We’re women of the world, Mira. We act when it’s important. And don’t you worry about your house or animals, either. Johnny’s mom is going to take in Luna and Tiger Pop. Says she’ll be lonely without Johnny anyway. And Gary said he’d run by to make sure your pipes don’t freeze.”
    I tried to swallow my own spit but started coughing instead. “You