Kendra said she would handle calling the body shop and the police. Spinner nabbed a ride with Jay Hobart.

While waiting for the tow truck to arrive, Kendra spotted Rick.

"Do you know what happened?" she asked.

Rick puffed up in defense, though nothing in Kendra's tone suggested she was accusing him. "I didn't do this," he informed her icily.

Kendra blinked. "I was just asking if you saw anything."

"No, I didn't. I don't know anything more than you."

Cole glanced at Rick warily, but Kendra did not seem to take any special notice of Rick's protests. Kendra saw Rick's display of temper as perfectly normal; he would have thrown a hissy fit whether he was innocent or guilty, and she explained it briefly to Cole once Rick left.

While Kendra was busy with the tower, Cole slipped upstairs. He had promised to call his mom once he arrived in Degrassi and he had put it off for a couple of hours.

His mother picked up on the second ring. "Hi, honey."

"Hi."

"How was the flight?"

"Okay." Cole thought back to the flight, which had already receded from his memory. "There weren't any problems."

"And the Masons? How are they? Are they nice to you?"

"Yes." Cole hesitated. He wondered if it was okay to tell his mom that Kendra could see dead people too. That offered too many complications, though. It would make his mom worry. And he doubted Kendra would welcome him spreading that information around. She seemed to value her sixth sense as a private affair.

"I haven't met the parents yet," he clarified for his mom. "But my cousins are nice. Kendra made lunch for me."

"That's good," his mother sighed. "I know the kids are older than you, but I'm sure there's someone your age around. Abby told me about some of the youth programs there. You could ask her or Kendra to find one of those."

"Yeah," Cole said. He was not as enthusiastic about that as his mother sounded. He hated leaving his friends in Philadelphia. He had just made real friends for the first time in his life, and he had to spend the summer apart from them.

Cole would not complain to his mother, though. It couldn't be helped.

"I'm so glad to hear from you," Lyn said. Her voice thickened, as if she were about to start bawling. "Listen, if anything happens, you can call me. I'll try to arrange something, if you're unhappy there."

"I know, Mom," Cole spoke patiently, even though he hated it when his mother got all worried. "Everything's fine. I'll talk to you in a couple of days."

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you too," Cole easily replied. No one was around to overhear him say that, except maybe Rick. He closed his phone and flopped on the bed, the day's events flooding through his head.

Kendra had not believed that Rick was responsible for the broken car windows, and Cole was inclined to trust her judgment. Cole also noticed something else; the glint of fear that showed in Spinner's eyes when he spotted the bullet hole.

The officer saw it as a random act of vandalism. Kendra had a tougher time dealing with the body shop convincing them to leave a loaner car. The mechanic was uncomfortable leaving a loaner car for someone who did not even have her license yet. Finally Kendra called Joey Jeremiah, the owner of the body shop, who agreed to allow Spinner to pick up the loaner car after work.

"Paternalistic bastards," she muttered as she dialed Spinner and left an update on his voicemail.

Kendra finished all the arrangements within a half hour. After debating her next action for several minutes, she climbed upstairs.

Cole managed to find the guest room on his own. He was sprawled on the upper half of the bed, absorbed in checking his phone messages.

Kendra knocked. "Do you want to go outside?"

"Okay," Cole said blandly. He did not seem thrilled with the idea. He stowed the phone in a small pocket of his bag.

Kendra led him to a small park a few blocks away. The park had an air of abandonment, even though half the playground equipment had been replaced by safer and more cheerful looking apparatuses. Kendra spotted a few people clustered around the new equipment.

Among them was Craig and Manny, two teenagers from her school. They loitered by the big slide. Craig's six-year-old sister, Angie, hung on the rope ladder that draped off one side of the platform. Craig hovered nearby, in case Angie started to fall as she climbed up the ladder. Manny, his on-and-off-again girlfriend, clung to his side.

Angie ascended to the platform, and Craig and Manny both glanced over Kendra's way. Craig tensed into a disapproving frown. Manny, stepping away from Craig, waved hesitantly.

"What are you doing here?" Craig said crossly.

Almost simultaneously, Manny spoke, "So is this your cousin?"

"Yeah." Kendra introduced Cole.

"I'm Manny," Manny said, all sweetness to Cole. "And this is Craig and Angie. You're from the United States, right? Is this your first time in Canada?"

"Yes." Cole was startled that the older girl knew so much about him.

Angie bounced down the slide. "I can do cartwheels," she announced.

Craig reached out his arm, as if to separate Angie from the unwanted visitors.

"Watch my cartwheels," Angie ordered. She veered to the side, hitched her legs up in the air, and then landed clumsily on the other side.

"Impressive," Kendra praised, which encouraged Angie to spin off several more cartwheels. Then Angie stopped and squinted at Cole.

"How old are you?" she asked him.

"Eight."

"I was wondering," Kendra asked, "if JT was running his kids program this summer." She directed the question more to Manny than Craig. "I think Cole's going to get bored hanging around teenagers all the time."

JT, who was in her class, interned in a local kids' show for the summer. Though most of the audience was Angie's age or younger, it did have its share of eight and nine year olds.

"Yes, he is. Among other things." Manny offered. "If you want, I can ask if Cole can come to one of the rehearsals."

"You don't have to," Cole stammered. He was apprehensive about the idea of appearing on TV.

Manny smiled sympathetically. "Don't worry, you don't have to go on camera if you don't want to. You can just watch."

"Okay," Cole responded. He remembered to thank her.

"I guess you'll be coming too, Kendra?" Manny asked.

Kendra blinked. "Looks like it."

Manny smiled in transparent relief. As uncomfortable as that would be, Kendra's presence was preferable to Spinner's.

"Angie and I are going to head home," Craig informed them. "Are you coming, Manny?"

"How's Jimmy?" Kendra blurted out.

She thought Craig could not possibly be more offended by her presence. She was wrong. He flexed his hands, as if he were regaining control of his anger.

Manny fielded that answer. "Okay. He's doing major rehabbing." She signaled to Angie. "We've got to go. It was nice to meet you, Cole."

She yanked Craig towards the exit. Angie waved to Kendra and Cole, then half skipped, half cartwheeled after her brother.

Kendra strutted to the monkey bars and easily swung up to the top. Cole, unable to follow that maneuver, stopped at the third rung of the ladder.

"I take it they're not friends?" he asked.

Define friends, Kendra silently challenged. Craig used to be Spinner's friend, before the shooting. Manny was in several classes and teams with Kendra, but she spent more time with Spinner; they had this major flirtation for a while.

"Not really," she answered honestly.

Cole did not ask any more personal questions for the rest of the day. It was clear Kendra did not have many friends. He should know: making friends could be tough with such a massive secret as she had.

After they got back from the playground, Kendra switched on the TV. While they watched, Kendra pulled out her sketch pad and carefully outlined a lake scene. She appeared unsatisfied with the outcome, as she turned the page and started again.

Spinner arrived home a couple of hours later.

"I got the car," he told them, his voice devoid of triumph. He set down a large box of muffins.

"I got your banana walnut muffins, Kendra, and one of every other flavor."

"Cool, thanks." Kendra put aside her sketch pad. She selected one of the brown muffins and took a big bite.

"Thanks," Cole echoed. He surveyed the choices. Kendra's attention, however, roved to the bandage on Spinner's hand.

"What happened?" she asked, gesturing curiously at the hand.

"Coffeepot shattered," Spinner replied shortly, as he withdrew his hand from sight. His boss cut his check this week to compensate for the cost. Without divulging any other details, he sauntered upstairs.

"Do you have a knife?" Cole asked, after he picked out a cranberry muffin. A dead woman appeared in front of him, holding out a sharp butcher knife covered with blood.

"I'll get a butter knife," Kendra announced. "Put that away," she said to the dead woman. The woman silently obeyed. She sheathed the knife and followed Kendra in the kitchen.

"Just a warning," Rick said. He was sitting on the couch, next to the spot Kendra abandoned. "Don't look through her sketch book."

"I wasn't going to," Cole complained.

"Probably not. But forewarned is forearmed."

Now that Rick mentioned it, Cole had begun wondering what was in Kendra's sketchbook that was so private. But he did not want to know bad enough to breach her privacy.

Kendra returned with the butter knife. Cole sliced the muffin in half and packed the remainder back in the box.

Cole was wiped out from the day. He went to bed relatively early, keeping in mind that it was three hours later in Philadelphia. Still he searched the room for signs of dead that had haunted his room at home.

He stood on the bed and examined the ceiling for suspicious cracks, particularly around the circular ventilation disc that appeared in all the upstairs rooms in the Masons' house. To his relief, it seemed that that those dead people had not followed him here.