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Roddy Hall stared at the doghouse. The battered old wreck, tilted against the side of the wagon, looked as if it might fall apart at any moment. Still, he had to have it. Once he got it home, he’d figure out how to fix it.

“All you have to do is hold the wagon steady for a sec,” he said. “I’ll slide the house up over the edge, and then we can sort of balance it.”

Jacob rolled his eyes but did as he was told. Roddy shoved, grunted, and shoved again. Gradually the house moved upward. Then it crashed down across the wagon, sticking out on either side.

“Beautiful!” Roddy puffed, picking up a board that had fallen off the roof. “You hold it in place, and I’ll pull the wagon.”

They walked slowly up the gravel road from the riverbank where someone had dumped the doghouse. Roddy had noticed it two months ago, right after he and his mom moved to Hilltop Drive. For a few days he had wandered around alone, just looking at the many empty, run-down houses. His mom always said Hilltop was the right place to be because the rent was so low. She liked it, too, because the town was just eight miles from Gregg Army Base. His dad had left for Afghanistan from Gregg, and it was the place he would return to someday.

“Make the best of it,” his mom had said. “You never know what’s waiting for you out there, little man.”

Now he knew that the doghouse had been waiting, like a miracle, when he needed one. Maybe this would be a whole week of miracles. The doghouse today, and tomorrow or the day after a letter or an e-mail from his dad to say he would be home soon. Roddy pulled harder, just thinking about it.

“You don’t even know for sure you’re getting a dog,” Jacob grumbled. “We might be doing all this work for nothing.”

“I do know for sure.” Roddy corrected him. “I was there when my mom’s friend Linda called this morning. She shows dogs for rich people, and she’s taking one to a show in Philadelphia today. Her neighbor’s supposed to come in and look after things when Linda’s away, but the neighbor has the flu. So Linda needs someone to take care of her own dog, Princess, for a week. My mom said okay. And,” Roddy finished triumphantly, “the minute I heard that I remembered this doghouse.”

Roddy didn’t argue. He’d wanted a dog for as long as he could remember. Now he had a week to prove to his mom that he was old enough to take care of one himself.

“I’ll push,” the girl announced, as if she hadn’t heard Roddy at all. She was skinny and brown, with a long, almost white braid and startling blue eyes. She wore a baggy T-shirt with SAVE THE PLANET EARTH printed on it.

They started up the hill. Roddy pulled, the girl pushed, and Jacob kept both hands on the doghouse to keep it from slipping.

“We’re going to Roddy’s house,” Jacob explained. “He’s getting a dog, and it’s going to need a house.”

The girl snorted. “That poor dog will drown in the first rainstorm,” she said. “Look at the roof.”

The wagon began to move faster. Soon Roddy almost had to run to keep ahead of it. When he looked back he saw that Jacob was running, too. The girl was out of sight behind the wagon, but when she spoke again she wasn’t panting at all.

“I’d never make a dog sleep in a doghouse,” she said. “I’d have it in my bedroom. Right on my bed.”

What a pain she was! “Stop pushing,” Roddy growled. “This is where I live.”

The girl’s head popped up from behind the doghouse. “You’re kidding!” she exclaimed. “You’re Roddy Hall? I didn’t know you were getting a dog. That’s great!”

The girl’s blue eyes narrowed. She looked at Jacob, then at Roddy. Then she looked down at the doghouse.

“You are so not bright,” she said. “I’m Princess. Princess Thornberry. My stepmother Linda dropped me off an hour ago. And if you think I’m going to sleep in a broken-down doghouse, you’re crazy. Your mom said I get the bedroom with all the dinosaur posters.”

Roddy blinked. “Now just wait,” he sputtered. “You’re not—you can’t—you’re not a dog.”

Roddy was stunned. Whoever heard of a girl called Princess? “I don’t believe you,” he said faintly.

“I do.” Jacob sighed. “I just knew we were doing all this work for nothing.” He poked Roddy with his elbow. “That’s your bedroom she’s talking about,” he said. “The bedroom with all the dinosaur posters. Maybe you’re the one who gets to sleep in the doghouse tonight.”

“It’s not my fault you misunderstood,” Roddy’s mother said in a low voice. She smoothed a blanket over the cot in the basement. “You should have asked me, little man. Her real name is Jane, but her father started calling her Princess when she was a baby, and the name stuck.”

Roddy sat down on the cot with a thump. “Well, she’s not a princess to me,” he muttered. “Why does she have to sleep in my room?”

“Because the family-room couch is lumpy,” his mom said calmly. “As you very well know. And I wouldn’t ask our guest—a sweet little girl—to sleep in the basement.” She reached across the cot and tousled his hair. “You have the camp lantern and your radio—you’ll be fine. It’s only for a week, Roddy. Have a good night now.”

At the top of the stairs she turned off the light, and Roddy switched on the camp lantern. A pool of light sprang up around the cot, but the rest of the basement was full of hulking shadows. The furnace. The water heater. Piles of still-packed boxes. Across the room a faint light streamed in through the small window, making the washer and dryer gleam spookily.

Roddy lay down and pulled the sheet and blanket up to his chin. He wondered if his dad slept on a cot like this one. When his father went to Afghanistan, at first he had been stationed in an abandoned hotel. He’d drawn a funny picture of the hotel in one of his letters. Then he had e-mailed to say he was being moved. Soon after that the messages had stopped.

“I bet he’s in a palace now,” Roddy’s mom had joked. “He hasn’t written because he doesn’t want to make us jealous.” But when she said that her smile was kind of lopsided, and she kept reading the old letters over and over again, as if she were looking for something that wasn’t there.

Roddy moved the lantern closer and switched it off. The basement was very dark. Princess! he thought disgustedly. Old Princess was probably propped up in his bed watching his television. He squirmed, remembering how eager she’d been to tell his mom about the doghouse.

“He thought I was a dog!” she’d snickered, and his mom had chuckled, too—just a little, but still.… He pulled the blanket higher and tried to forget how much he’d wanted that dog. Even for a week.

One minute he was sort of floating down Hilltop Drive, his feet not quite touching the road, and there was a beautiful golden retriever loping along beside him. The next minute he was sitting up straight on the cot, too scared to breathe. An odd sound had awakened him—a muffled thud, followed by a scuffling noise. He reached for the lantern, but before he could turn it on, someone ran by outside the moonlit window.

A robber! he thought. A guy who knew his dad had shipped out and thought it would be easy to break in.

He felt around in the dark for his shoes and tiptoed up the stairs. The door at the top opened into the little back hall. Roddy stood very still, his heart thumping like a drum inside his chest. Then he slid his fingers across the opposite wall, until he found his baseball bat propped in the corner. He hoisted it to his shoulder and unlocked the door.

The world outside wasn’t as dark as the basement had been. Roddy tiptoed to the front of the house and peeked around the corner. No one on the front porch. No one moving at all. He began to feel a little braver.

I would have smacked him if I’d caught him, he’d tell Jacob tomorrow. Even if he’d been a great big guy, I would have knocked him out. If that happened there might be a picture in the paper of this kid protecting his house and his mother. They could send the picture to Afghanistan … his dad would be proud.

Something hit him on the head and rolled out onto the street. Roddy’s hands turned clammy. He squinted and saw that it was an apple—one of the small green ones that dotted the tree in front of his house.

“You are just weird,” said a voice from the tree. “Who else plays baseball in the middle of the night?”

The girl—Princess—was high in the tree, straddling a branch, her legs swinging. Like she couldn’t fall if she tried, Roddy thought. He hated high places himself.

“You’re supposed to be in bed,” he said in a growly whisper. “My mom would be really mad if she knew you sneaked out.”

“That’s why I was very quiet,” Princess said. “So I wouldn’t disturb her.”

“Well, I heard you,” Roddy said. “I thought someone was trying to break into our house.”