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right?”
    Her father shook his head. “I misspoke. What I meant to say was that you should always do what I think is right.”
    He was so pissed.
    This is why it’s so hard to trust your parents with the secrets of time and space.
    Feeling like a rat grasping at straws, she asked, “Does Mom know you’re doing this?”
    He blinked and sighed. “Don’t go complaining to her, Siara. Just don’t. She’s got enough on her mind. The demo’s tomorrow night.”
    Demo?
    As if her home had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, Siara looked around at the dirty dishes in the sink, the scattered papers on the counter, and the dust gathering at the edges of the flower-patterned linoleum floor. The apartment was a mess, and she remembered for the first time why.
    Her mother hadn’t been around much lately.
    â€œOh yeah. The demo,” Siara said, wincing. A wet blanket of guilt briefly smothered thoughts of Harry. Peroxisome Inc. was coming to RAW to show off “H to O,” their new fuel cell engine. Mom was a broom-pushing, coffee-getting assistant at the lab, but she’d been put in charge of the demo. It was her big break. She was also excited about showing off her daughter to the company bigwigs, so excited she didn’t even hear Siara wail about the major embarrassment factor when she insisted Siara wear a gross business suit—” Peroxisome code!”—and help with the catering.
    â€œYeah. That,” Dad said slowly.
    It was hopeless. No way out. “Fine. Okay. I’ll take the grounding. I’ll help you put locks on the windows, and of course I’ll support Mom. I’ll even go to counseling, whatever…but, Dad, I’ve got to see Harry. I’d go myself, but the bus ride’s three hours and…”
    Her father raised a single eyebrow, exactly the same way Siara herself did when something totally, utterly pointless was going on. If that eyebrow had been a sword it would have cut her in two.
    Defeated, she slid her chair away from the too-small table and walked by the overloaded sink, vaguely thinking she should pitch in and clean up. She lived here, too, after all. Sort of.
    More and more often it felt like she didn’t. It just didn’t feel like her apartment, or her planet anymore. A-Time had changed all that. Harry had. A more exciting world was waiting out there, full of adventures, mistakes, and victories, both pointless and profound. Siara wanted to run into it full-tilt, but her feet kept getting stuck here, where she was still considered a child.
    Her father didn’t know any of that. To him, she only looked troubled. It wasn’t his fault, so just before exiting the kitchen, she turned back and said, “Sorry.”
    He exhaled and finally lowered the damn eyebrow. “I know. Look, let’s both try to pretend we’re sane for your mother’s sake, just until after tomorrow night. Then…maybe I will drive you to see your friend. Past that, RAW…maybe it’s too much pressure for you poets. Maybe we should talk about alternatives.”
    Her mouth dropped open. He’d said time and time again that he wanted her to be a lawyer or a doctor, and RAW, supposedly one of the best high schools in the country, was phase one of that plan. Being offered a chance to switch schools should be a big exhale, a sigh of relief, but right now it didn’t feel like that at all. It felt like a failure.
    She slunk out of the kitchen, feeling her father stare at her back. As her eyes greeted the dark of the hallway, an image of Harry flashed in her mind; he in the back of an ambulance, strapped to a gurney, grunting, straining, mouth open so wide it threatened to tear the corners of his lips. Everything about him screamed that he’d figured out something important, something so horribly important it had driven him completely insane.
    She worried it was just reality he’d figured out, that