Perhaps only Ellen also saw the brief flash of triumph in Laura's features."Why, hello, Laura," Raina said sincerely. Ellen had of course conspired wi...th Raina and she was prepared to act the innocent while fanning the flames of Laura's exquisite shame. She remained seated, forcing Laura to her knees in order to conduct their exchange. "What can I do for you?" My mis ... my sponsor Ellen has instructed me to ask a favor of you," Laura began. Raina looked a question, hoping she was not. "Derek blinked. "Wow, Jane. Your fame is spreading." You're going to Rule Three me again," Jane said flatly."Not me," said Simon. "This guy over here."Beside him stood a handsome young man. He held forth his hand. "Hi, I'm Will."Derek gaped.Will Streuger wore his hair long and loose, and it tumbled in curlicues and waves. His eyes were an intense blue and his smile was known to make girls melt. He was a shoo-in for any number of titles in the graduating class—student of the year, Valedictorian,. That would let secrets out, and none of us had diaries. I did have a keepsake drawer, so I tucked mine away there.We got up late on Saturday morning. We'd stayed up way too late recounting what had happened. That was when our mothers gave us the first lesson of this new world we were joining: you never give any indication that anything had happened.Liz and I quickly added to that rule. You always have a plausible explanation. A hasty scan through the TV section of the paper gave us one, a. The crab apple sized CPU of my Mac XVII had to have a steady stream of water running through it to keep it from burning up. A nuisance, though it helped to keep our pool warm in cold weather.Not even the latest nanobots could do everything. They could do almost nothing about the worst problem to face us, the continuing rapid breakdown of the ozone layer. All that we had done with them so far was to change our melanin cells to chloroplasts, seeding our skins with chlorophyll to convert some of.