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“Our journey will take us to a more wondrous place. We are headed for the bedroom of one Miles Macintosh, age nine and a half!”

CHAPTER SIX

J EZEBEL
N EW Y ORK C ITY , T ODAY
    As Jezebel blinked and stretched herself awake, she remembered something her father was fond of saying:
Never underestimate your ability to surprise yourself
. For example, a person would imagine that after a night spent battling closet monsters in the dark, sleep would be an impossibility. Especially in the same room, next to the very same closet door that those monsters had emerged from. Yes, a person might imagine that.
    But that person had obviously never met Jezebel Lemon and Her Amazingly Lazy Body. Her father also liked to remark that Jez could comfortably sleep through an earthquake, and while that had yet to be put to the test, Jez suspected he was right. Somehow, incredibly, Jez had fallen asleep, only to awake to another stormy, cloud-covered day. The weak morning sun barely cut through the gloom outside her window, and Jez awoke with a puddle of drool on her pillow.
    Her room was the same unchanged battlefield from the night before. As Jezebel passed her father’s closed door she thought about knocking, but what would she tell him? On the heels of yesterday’s hysteria, what would he think of this story?
    Jez walked into the living room and stood for a while, watching the downpour. It had picked up again overnight. The rain just kept coming in steady sheets. The heavy showers had the effect of blurring everything outside the window so the city looked like a painting that had gotten smeared—there were no hard lines anymore; the whole world had gone bleary at the edges.
    She needed help. The boy in the basement had been creepy—scary, even. But those things in her closet had been terrifying. Still, a ghost in the basement? Monsters in the closet? Who would believe her?
    Sasha’s apartment was just down the hall. The two of them had been friends since Jezebel moved in, and for a while they’d even been best friends. But over the last year or so things had changed. Small things at first, like little disagreements over movies they wanted to see or music they liked. Sasha was getting prettier every day while Jezebel was just getting taller, but that wasn’t the real reason for the distance. Sasha couldn’t wait to grow up, and while Jezebel wasn’t opposed to it in theory, she just couldn’t get the hang of it. She wasn’t sure what was expected of her or how she should behave.
    Their last fight hadn’t even been a fight, not really. Sasha called Jezebel at her mom’s to tell her that she’d had her first kiss with a boy named Max Perkins. Jezebel had been quiet on the phone, and Sasha took that to mean that Jez was jealous, and in anger she’d hung up on Jez. But Jez wasn’t jealous—Max had peach fuzz on his upper lip and called everyone “dawg.” Jez didn’tsay anything because she’d heard the story before; she’d heard the rumors at school just like everyone else. Jez didn’t say anything because Sasha, her best friend, hadn’t told her first. Or even second or third. She wasn’t sure where she fit in anymore among the hierarchy of Sasha’s friends, but it was far down the list and getting farther every day.
    But right now she was the best hope Jez had.
    Jez knocked on Sasha’s door, and when no one answered that, she rang the bell a few times. After several minutes she heard the peephole flipping open and the door opened to reveal Sasha’s mom standing there, sleepy-eyed. She had a bathrobe on that she was holding closed with one hand; she hadn’t even bothered to tie it.
    “Jezebel?” she asked. “Is there something the matter? Are you all right?”
    “Is Sasha home?” Jez asked.
    “Sasha … I don’t … Jezebel, it’s six in the morning!”
    It was? Jez hadn’t even thought to check the time. Well, that explained why her dad was still asleep.
    “So, she’s not home? Because I’d really