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promise to wait for Lana Jean. I glanced at the spot where she’d been talking to Travis, but the guys had left, and there was no sign of her.
    “Did you see where Lana Jean went?” I asked Tammy.
    “B.J. and Travis and those other guys they hang out with went toward the rides,” she said. “Lana Jean waited a minute, then I think she followed them.” Tammy paused and looked embarrassed. “She’s had a thing for Travis all year,” she said, “and it’s so obvious, everyone knows about it. Travis’s been really rude to her, but that hasn’t discouraged her for a minute.”
    “She shadows him,” I said.
    “I know. That’s probably what she’s doing now.”
    For an instant I was angry. She’d told me to stay here and wait for her, then she went wandering off. “Where are we meeting your friends?” I asked Tammy. “I’m getting hungry.”
    For a while I looked around for Lana Jean, but there was no sign of her, and no sign of Travis and his friends either. Tammy and I and the other girls tried the Ferris wheel and merry-go-round and a crack-the-whip ride that nearly brought up the hot dogs I’d eaten. I was actually having fun, and I had to admit to myself that I was glad I’d come to the carnival.
    Tammy’s father came to pick her up a little after ten, and I noticed that the crowd had begun to thin out. I purposefully began searching for Lana Jean, even checking all the rides, but I couldn’t find her.

CHAPTER SIX
    I grew more and more upset. I wanted to get out of that place, but I was supposed to give Lana Jean a ride home. If she’d gone somewhere with someone else—I couldn’t imagine it was Travis—she should have let me know.
    I decided to walk back to Mom’s car to see if by any chance Lana Jean had gone there to wait for me. Outside the gaudy, bright circle of carnival light, the road was dark and lonely. I hesitated, waiting for others to leave so that I’d have company.
    Two women and an elderly man walked past me, laughing as one of them said to the man, “Finally had enough, did you? Or do you want to go back and have a try at that crack-the-whip?”
    I stepped forward eagerly, grateful to have company onthe dark road, but their car was parked close to the carnival entrance, and they drove off, leaving me standing in the middle of the road, wondering what to do next.
    The plop of running feet behind me caused me to yelp and whirl, ready to defend myself, but a voice called, “Katie! Where are you going? You said you’d wait for me!”
    “Wait for you!” I repeated, anger flooding out the fear. “How long did you expect me to wait? It’s almost eleven! My mom is probably worried. Where have you been all this time?”
    She stopped in front of me, breathing hard, her head down as though she were a child being scolded. “I thought you’d know,” she said. “I was watching Travis.”
    In spite of the problems she’d caused me, I felt so sorry for her I couldn’t stay angry. “Lana Jean, why do you spy on Travis? He must know you’re shadowing him.”
    Her head jerked up, and she insisted, “No, he doesn’t! I’m real good at it.”
    “But why do you want to? He isn’t even friendly to you.”
    “He isn’t
un
friendly.”
    “How can you say that?” I started to walk to the car, and she trotted along beside me. “Look, this is what I mean: Tonight … what did he say to you tonight?”
    “Hi.”
    “That’s it? Hi? Nothing else?”
    “I asked him if he was having fun, and he said yeah. And then I asked if he wanted anything to eat, and he said no. And then they started to walk away, and B.J. told me to get lost.”
    I groaned. We’d reached the car, so I unlocked it, automatically checking the backseat, and we climbed in. “Why don’t you forget Travis and get interested in some other guy?” I asked as I swung the car around and headed back the way we had come.
    “I can’t,” she said.
    She gave me directions to her house, and I let her off in front.