“Nan, that’s disgusting,” Mina laughed.

“Tell me about it. I’m the one who actually had to taste the thing. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat cottage cheese again.” She gargled orange juice.

“What possessed you to put cottage cheese in the cereal?”

“When I saw what Charlie what he was eating I challenged him to a contest. Winner gets to pick out a movie and make the loser watch it. Believe me, I had no idea he added caramel to his cereal. Blech!” Nan shuddered dramatically.

Mina had forgotten that Nan hated caramel almost as much as Charlie hated cottage cheese. “So you thought you would cover the taste of caramel with something else you liked?”

Nan bobbed her head. “Yeah, I actually love cottage cheese and thought it was a great idea, and would surely make your brother freak out and I would win. The only problem was that when I added the cheese to the cereal and put it in my mouth, it took every ounce of strength not to immediately eject it out. My mind thought the milk had gone bad. But I did it, I won.” Nan began to do a victory dance around the kitchen.

Sara walked in and looked at the bowl in front of Nan, turning her nose up. “Okay, Charlie has taken it too far, he’s wasting cereal. I paid good money for those boxes.”

Nan looked sheepish and grabbed the bowl away from Sara. “No Mrs. Grime, that’s actually my cereal. I’m having breakfast with Charlie.”

Sara raised one eyebrow at Nan.

Feeling pressured to prove her point, Nan took the spoon and shoveled another gross spoonful into her mouth, screwing her face into a big fake grin.

Satisfied, Sara busied herself in the kitchen while the girls hid their laughter. “Where is Charlie, anyway?”

“Bathroom,” Mina answered quickly. When Sara went back to her bedroom to grab her keys and wallet, Nan spat the cereal out into the garbage and began the sink and orange juice routine all over again.

Mina took the bowl of cereal away and dumped it down the garbage disposal, removing any hint of Nan’s stupidity. “So now that you won, what are you going to make Charlie watch?”

“I don’t know, I was thinking of something really horrible like the whole first season of Power Puff Girls, something completely girly and embarrassing.” Nan’s face lit up with the prospect of torturing Charlie. “Or maybe, I could find a documentary on the making of cottage cheese.”

“You do realize that you would have to sit through it as well.”

“Hmmm, then that won’t do. What do you suggest?”

“Why don’t you pick something you‘ll both like?”

“What?” she squealed. “That takes away the whole fun of the competition! NO! He must suffer.” Nan pointed her finger in the air dramatically.

Mina thought Nan would have made a great sibling if her parents hadn’t divorced when she was young. Neither one remarried, making Nan the quintessential only child; loved, spoiled and a little lonely, which is why she enjoyed hanging out with Charlie. Nan always said if she had a younger sibling she would want a brother, because then she wouldn’t have to share her clothes.

“Don’t you mean YOU must suffer?” Mina conjectured.

“Meh, whatever.” After Nan had finished with her tirade, she directed her radar Mina’s way. “So dish.”

“About what?” Mina asked casually.

“About WHAT? I can’t believe you. I didn’t drive all this way for nothing on a Saturday morning, I have cartoons to watch. Dish about what happened two days ago that made you miss school and send Brody into a coma.”

“He’s in a coma?” Mina panicked.

“No, not literally. Yeesh. He’s been walking around the school like some sort of zombie, not talking, just completely withdrawn. Something happen between you two?”

“You promise it’s not going to show up on any web page, interview, tweet or text?” Mina knew when dishing important info to Nan that she had to cover all of her bases.

Nan rolled her eyes and held up two fingers. “Boy Scouts honor.”

“You’re a girl.”

“Fine then, Girl Scouts honor.” Nan held up three fingers.

“Don’t think it counts if you’ve never actually been a girl scout.” Mina countered, making sure there were no loop holes in her friend’s credibility.

Mina looked over Nan’s shoulder toward her brother and mother’s room and decided that they needed to find a more private spot. Tapping Nan’s shoulder, she motioned down the hall and into her room. When the door was securely shut, Nan jumped across Mina’s hastily made bed. Mina perched on the end more daintily.

“Nan, I’m cursed.”

“Yeah, I know. We all are.” Nan kicked her legs back and forth and grabbed a magazine from Mina’s nightstand. “It’s called being a teenager. You, more so, because you live in the Stone Age.”

“No, my last name isn’t even Grime, it’s Grimm. What I am telling you is, I am personally cursed, or fated, to follow the same path as Grimms before me.” Mina already felt better now that she’d gotten it in the open. She had been thinking for the last few days on how to break the news to her best friend.

Nan just stared at Mina, blinking her eyes in thought. “Yeah, right. I’m supposed to go to Yale and become a lawyer like my father and his father before him, but do you see me treading down that path? No way Jose. I’m hitchhiking to Julliard instead.” Nan flipped a couple more pages and then oohed over a cute skirt.

Mina snatched the magazine from Nan and sat on it so her friend couldn’t grab it back. “I’m serious, Nan. I’m in over my head and I need your help.”

Nan sat up and gave Mina her full attention. “You’re really serious?”

Mina ran her hands over her head, “Dead serious.”

“Like, this isn’t some trick to try and punk me or anything, right?”

“No. I wish it were, I really do, but it’s not.”

“Okay, I’m listening. Start from the beginning.” Nan crossed her legs Indian style and waited patiently through Mina’s whole tale. She barely fidgeted, never once interrupted and even didn’t immediately grab her phone to tweet the update. “Whoa,” was all she said when Mina was done.

“You can say that again,” Mina mumbled unhappily.

“Whoa,” Nan repeated, and ducked as Mina threw a pillow at her. “So you were actually attacked outside the library? That must have been awesome.”

“Nan!” Mina chided. “NO! I could have been killed.”

“But you weren’t; Brody saved you. So if Brody saved your life and all, then why is he in such a fit?”

“I’m not sure, but I probably have something to do with it. He wanted me to go to the police, but if I did, and my mother found out, that would be the end of us. She would have shipped us out to Canada, before you can say … Canucks.”

“So you two fought,” Nan stated.

“Yes, we argued, and I demanded he drop me off. And with a huge bruise on the side of my cheek, I couldn’t very well go to school.” Mina paced her small bedroom and kept passing her bedroom mirror to look at the bruise.

“So in other words, he hasn’t called you, spoken to you, or seen you since the attack.” Nan ticked off the words on her hands. “That definitely explains why he has been out of sorts. MINA, CALL HIM! Let him know that you are still alive.”