I had to be hearing things. Every once in a while, I'd hear things clanking and clunking, but between Bones and the little guy, that wasn't all that weird. I didn't give it any thought.

And then I heard the sound of an engine starting up.

I immediately looked up to see if someone was pulling up outside, but there were no headlights on out there. Maybe it was just a passing car. Either way, I kept one of my earbuds out in case someone came to call.

In the middle of Linkin Park's "Somewhere I Belong", just when I'd gotten back to the oil-change on Daniel Mack's Saab, it happened again. This time, it didn't sound up like an engine rev so much as a throat-clearing.

I had to be hearing things. Another look around assured me that nothing was turned on.

As my gaze finished their circuit around the room, a pair of headlights flashed on and the engine revved again. It was definitely the station wagon, the old clunker that had been towed here this morning. I was betting that if I searched the whole car, I wouldn't be able to find out how it did it.

I shouldn't have been surprised—I'd been hanging out with a shape-shifting Camaro and a satanic toy car for years—but compared to the Mustang that Dad was working on and the Lexus that I needed to do a tuneup on, an '88 Ford Escort wasn't what I thought would turn out to have the Spark of life.

Maybe it was a fluke, but it…he…she…the thing was making me nervous. I went casually about my business and dialed Sam's number. He answered on the third ring, sounding groggy. It was about 2 a.m. on the East Coast and he'd just finished midterms.

"Hey, cutie," I said casually. "Sorry if I woke you up."

"No problem," he lied, his voice turning the kind of perky that meant he was trying to pretend he was alert and paying attention. "What's up?"

"Just a quick question." I turned around and pinned the Escort with a glare just in case it was in the mood to try something. Damn right I was the Warrior Goddess. "Does Satan's Camaro have a brother?"

The engine backfired and then started ticking. It sounded like a snort followed by a giggle. I was definitely hearing things. Sam hemmed and hawed for a few seconds before finally speaking up again.

"Uh…what? You mean, other than the other guys?"

"Yeah."

"Not that I…know of?" he said uncertainly. "Do I want to know why?"

"Um, there's a Ford station wagon sitting in my garage and laughing at me. Should I be worried?"

He finally sounded actually alert this time. "Have you done a walk-around? Checked for the usual sign?"

I didn't want to admit that I was half-tempted to get a defensive crowbar first. I'd been working across from the thing since dinner and it hadn't done a thing. Now I felt like I'd been spied on.

"Not yet." I picked up a socket wrench just in case and swung it casually back and forth as I started circling the thing. "Nothing special. Ohio plates. Bumper sticker of a Radio Flyer wagon. One of those MADD stickers. Ah…"

I trailed off. On the back windshield, right next to one of those Calvin-peeing stickers you see everywhere, was something that didn't look freaky. It looked like a decal, but didn't come off when I picked at it, and it was in the same shape as the Autobots' mark.

"Never mind, Sam," I said. "We're good."

"Not a robot at all?"

"I'll call you tomorrow."

I flipped the phone shut and went back to the workbench before sitting down to give the thing some space. I kept the wrench handy in case I was wrong.

"Okay," I called, "I know you're doing a good impression of not being a Decepticon. Want to come introduce yourself?"

The front grill retracted quickly and in the usual twist-and-shout of shape-shifting, the station wagon turned into a runty little autobot. Seriously, even Bumblebee would be head and shoulders taller than the 'bot in front of me, though the nameless station wagon was a lot boxier in build.

"I'm Mikaela," I introduced myself. "Are you a good bot or a bad bot?"

"You may call me Radio Flyer," the car introduced itself in a decent impression of an electronic Catherine Zeta-Jones. "Or RaFly, if you prefer. A pleasure to meet you."

"Mm-hmm." Polite or not, she'd been staring at me for hours. "How'd you get here?"

"The World Wide Web," she explained, trying to lounge like I was; it wasn't working terribly well. "You are on the friends page of Bumblebee's Sam."

I had to admit, of all the ways I'd thought I'd be contacted by aliens, I never thought it would come down to Facebook.

"So, why not go to him?" I asked, finally setting down the wrench. "He's got better connections."

RaFly gave a little shimmy that looked almost human. "I have not had contact with many of your kind," she confessed. "I preferred to approach a female."

Great. A shy alien car.

"So, the stalled engine was just an act?"

She looked, for all the world, like she would have blushed if she wanted to. "I had difficulty adapting to your oxygen-based atmosphere. That has been remedied now."

So, I had a Ford transformer in my garage. It was shy. It was a girl. And it had allergies to Earth.

"And you harbor a Decepticon. I didn't want to blow my cover."

"Wheelie? No, no, he's a defector. Sort of my fan club."

She blinked her headlights at me for nearly a minute. "Your fan club?"

"Yeah," I said. "Let's go for a ride. I'll tell you about it."