For the past half hour, Tessa and her neighbor Gus had been trying to rig up a hose-phone between the bedroom windows of their houses. They’d made a string-and-can phone before, but Gus figured they could simplify it. The plan was to stretch the hose above the alley between their two windows and talk through it.

Now it was a matter of swinging the hose Tessa was dangling out the window with enough momentum to reach Gus’s window. They hadn’t thought about the fact that the nozzle was metal and they were swinging it right above the living room windows until it slammed against the downstairs window frame, a near miss.

Tessa Hardy and Gus Tucker had lived next door to each other for their entire lives and had gotten into their fair share of trouble. Last year they’d accidentally shattered Tessa’s kitchen window playing baseball with a full coke can — a terrible idea all around — and had each needed to save $50 of allowance to go toward the repairs.

A hose-phone seemed safer. But it was proving to be harder to rig up than they’d expected.

“Not again!”called Tessa as the hose banged against the side of Gus’s house for the eighteenth time.

Tessa, leaning halfway out the window but keeping her center of gravity, which she’d just learned about in her science magazine, below the sill, softly swung the thick green hose again and watched it arc nowhere near Gus’s outstretched hands. She wasn’t easily     discouraged, but this was taking a long time, even for her. “I’m going to try five more times!” she called.

“Ok!” Gus called back, widening his stance to make himself more ready for the catch. Gus was the second tallest boy in the 6th grade, and everything about him was long and lanky. He had brown shaggy hair that turned almost gold in the summer, and his feet were huge. “Jackrabbit feet” is what his dad always called them. His parents said they’d been like that even when Gus was born. He reached out the window one more time as Tessa pulled the hose back and released it. This time it swung straight into his hands.

“Finally!” he yelled, pulling a length of the hose into his room.   

“Let’s try it!” Tessa called. Her mob of black curls bounced around her face as she did a victory dance. Her hair had been nearly to her elbow before she’d cut it last week to donate 10 inches. She couldn’t believe how light her head still felt. Her sister’s friends kept telling her that the short cut made her green eyes stand out. She’d always thought of them as muddy brown, but maybe they were kind of green?

Gus put his lips against the hose, stood to his full height, and hollered as loudly as he could. Tessa heard him mostly through the opened window and a spurt of cold water trickled down the side of her face.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

“What?” Gus called.

“We didn’t drain the hose!” It was true. They’d turned it off, yes, unscrewed it from the spigot and let the water run out, yes, but they hadn’t made sure all the coils were empty. Tessa laughed as she shook her wet head.

They yelled back and forth through the hose for a minute, which was really a lot like yelling through the opened windows, and then tried whispering. They could actually still hear each other.

“This might come in handy in a snowstorm,” Tessa whispered, “or in the morning when it’s too early to call.”

“I know!” said Gus, getting louder so Tessa could hear him through the window again. “We could even send batteries through this thing if one of our flashlights dies in a power outage! Or —”

The end of the hose slipped from Tessa’s hand and swung down between their houses.

“Or not,” Gus said, and he let his end fall, too.

“RIP, hose-phone.” Tessa called down to the green squiggle across the alley.

“It’ll be ok,” said Gus. “It was a good phone for a second. See you tomorrow!” he called, waving. “And don’t sweat Samantha — it’s almost summer!”

“Almost!” Tessa yelled back. Samantha Shaw. In all the years of elementary school, she and Samantha had never been friends, but they’d never been anything.  Until this year, when the week before spring break Mary Murphy, the girl who sneezed ridiculously loudly during math tests, moved away, and Samantha needed a new target. For some reason, she’d picked Tessa, and Samantha got meaner every day. Tessa waved to Gus and closed the window.

Instantly she felt the quiet of the house. An empty silent house felt a certain way, she’d decided. It felt like being watched from every direction and being completely alone at the exact same time. She didn’t like it. Tessa stomped down the creaky wooden stairs, humming to herself. At least it was a Loochie day, and the house smelled of garlicky tomatoes.

Loochie — Tia Lucinda, formally — was Tessa’s great aunt, a stout, grumpy, Costa Rican woman who loved Tessa’s father but didn’t care much for kids.  After Tessa’s mom had died three years ago, Loochie had insisted on helping out, so every week she came on Tuesdays and Thursdays during school to clean and cook dinner. Even though Loochie assaulted Tessa with complaints about her books on the floor and Tessa’s not wearing dresses, Loochie days were the best because after she left, smells of dinner filled the house. Loochie, despite her nagging, was an amazing cook.

After her mom died, Tessa knew lots of parents thought she was too young to stay home alone after school, but Tessa’s dad was different than most     parents. He’d said she was “unusually capable and  independent,” and she’d felt so proud when he’d    given her a house key of her very own.

But being independent was different than she’d   imagined, especially this year. Molly, her oldest sister, had left for college in September, and Cassie, in 10th grade, had her driver’s license now and always had somewhere to go. The house was mostly quiet.

Tessa took off her sneakers and kicked them into the middle of the living room onto the perfect vacuum tracks Loochie had left in the carpet. Then she     rumpled the fluffed pillows so it looked like someone had been home and walked into the kitchen. The back door crashed open.

“Cassie!” Tessa shrieked, jumping.

Cassie smiled apologetically as she rushed through the room, her head cocked to one side, holding the phone between her ear and shoulder. Her long black hair swished behind her.

“I thought you had a softball team party?” Tessa called after her.

“Forgot the card we made Coach!” Cassie yelled back, running upstairs.

Cassie was nice enough, but she wasn’t like Molly. The whole time their mom was sick, and even after that, Molly had let Tessa sleep in her bed and had met Tessa’s school bus every afternoon. Tessa had tried to be happy for Molly when she’d gotten accepted to  college in Rhode Island, but Tessa had felt her heart squeeze almost to death when Molly had left last September. Tessa missed her every day.

Tessa pulled out her phone and saw she had a text from her dad.

Home by 7:30!

She sighed. It was only 5:04. Her dad tried to be home by 7:00 every day, but as he often explained to Tessa, now that he’d been promoted, he was the “host” of the art museum, which meant lots of       lectures, galas, dinners, and sometimes trips.

Cassie sped back downstairs. “LoveyoutellDadI’ll-behomebynine!” She hurried out the door. “It’s    starting to rain!” she yelled, slamming the car door.

Tessa heard the engine start as rain began hitting the kitchen window. Maybe the storm would be big enough to knock the power out. Then they’d have to close the museum early and probably the pizza place so that Cassie would come home, too. They could all light candles and pretend they lived in Little House on the Prairie, like they used to do during storms with their mom when Tessa was little.

The lights flickered but stayed on.