Crenshaw. Katherine Applegate

tree in the backyard. Or maybe they could start their rock band up again and win a Grammy Award.

      I didn’t want to leave our apartment, but I could feel it coming, even if nobody said anything. I knew how things worked. I’d been through this before.

      It was too bad, because I really liked where we lived, even though we’d only been there a couple of years. Swanlake Village was the name of our neighbourhood. It didn’t have any real swans. But all the mailboxes had swans on them, and the community pool had a swan painted on the bottom.

      The pool water was always warm. Mum said it was from the sun, but I suspected illegal peeing.

      All the streets in Swanlake Village had two words in their names. Ours was Quiet Moon. But there were others, like Sleepy Dove and Weeping Wood and Sunny Glen. My school, Swanlake Elementary, was only two blocks from my house. It didn’t have anything with swans on it.

      Swanlake Village wasn’t a fancy place at all, just a regular old neighbourhood. But it was friendly. It was the kind of place where you could smell hot dogs and burgers grilling every weekend. Where kids rode their scooters on the sidewalk and sold lousy lemonade for a quarter a cup. It was a place where you had friends you could count on, like Marisol.

      You wouldn’t have thought it was a place where people were worried or hungry or sad.

      Our school librarian likes to say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Maybe it’s the same way with neighbourhoods. Maybe you can’t judge a place by its swans.

      

      I finally fell asleep, but around eleven I woke. I got up to go to the bathroom, and as I headed down the hall, I realised my parents were still awake. I could hear them talking in the living room.

      They were thinking of places we could go if we couldn’t pay the rent.

      If I don’t become an animal scientist, I would make a great spy.

      My mum said how about Gladys and Joe, my dad’s parents. They live in an apartment in New Jersey. My dad said they only had one extra bedroom. Then he declared, “Plus, I couldn’t live under his roof. He’s the most pig-headed man on the planet.”