Chapter One

      “Chocolate chip. Cool.” Bobby Margolis plucked a cookie from the heaped platter and took a healthy bite. “Umm...good.” Between chews he remembered his manners. Wiping a moist crumb from his chin, he managed a hasty swallow, a sheepish grin. “Thanks.”

      “’Tis welcome you are, lad.” A wrinkly woman with hair like cotton balls set the platter on a doilydraped table next to his glass of milk. “Help yourself now. A growing boy needs nourishment.”

      “Okay.” He took another cookie, slyly palmed a third for later. Mom always said it was rude to be greedy, but he’d sneaked away from the class outing before lunch, and his stomach was rumbling like an old school bus on a bumpy road.

      Humming softly, the nice lady with the pretty smile busied herself laying fancy napkins beside the platter of warm treats, pretending not to notice the extra cookie hidden in his hand. Bobby was pretty sure she’d seen him take it, though, because her eyes got all twinkly, and her mouth kind of twitched the way Mom’s did when she was trying not to laugh.

      A sweet fragrance wafted around him as the lady moved, a scent that reminded him of the funny heartshaped packets his mother laid in closets and drawers. Lavender, she called it, and said it made things smell good. Only Bobby didn’t want his underwear reeking like girl stuff, so Mom had promised to keep all her flowery junk out of his bedroom. Mom always kept her promises. Well, not always. There was one promise she hadn’t kept.

      That’s why Bobby was here.

      He swallowed, squirmed, twitched his sneakered feet, which dangled several inches above the gleaming hardwood floor. “So when do I get to meet the lawyer?”

      “You already have.” With an amused tilt of her head, the lady’s face spread into a wreath of wrinkles that made her look about a million years old. “Clementine