For Nevermore Season 1

toward the door as the bell rang a second time. She looked through the peephole and saw Jen, her new neighbor from across the street, standing on the other side.
    Noella opened the door to a barrage of words. Jen said, “Hi there, Noella. We met last week. I’m Jen from across the street. And I’m so, so sorry to do this to you, and it’s totally not like me, but I really need your help.”
    Jen looked at her, eyes pleading and waiting for Noella’s face to soften. She smiled, and the woman continued.
    “I have an emergency and I need your help. I need a job, like bad. I have more drama than you have time, so I won’t talk your ear off or bore you, or tell you what led here me to The Falls. But I will tell you I’m a damn good paralegal, and that they just accepted my application at one of the seven law firms I applied to since moving here. I have an inside tip that might help me nab the job tonight, but I have no one to watch Tori. If I don’t meet my friend right now, then my inside track expires and one of the other applicants will probably get the job.”
    Jen folded her fingers together, then made her eyes beg and said, “Please, Noella. I have no one else. Tori’s an easy kid, and you’ll love her. I promise. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
    “You don’t have to make it up to me,” Noella said, looking past Jen and over at Sam’s old house. “Let me leave my aunt a note and then I’ll be right over.”

    * * * *

CHAPTER FOUR

    6:10 p.m.

    “Thank you soooo much,” Jen said, inviting Noella into their house as she was getting ready to go.
    Noella stepped inside, and a nostalgic feeling overwhelmed her, reminding her of all the hours she and Sam spent in the house hanging out. Though the house looked different from when Sam lived there, it was still similar enough to pull on her heartstrings and make her miss him all the more.
    Noella found Tori sitting cross-legged on the couch, eyes glued to an episode of Phineas and Ferb .
    It was Noella’s favorite episode: Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo, the one where Phineas and Ferb travel to the future and find a 35-year-old Candace who follows them back to their own time so she can finally bust her brothers, which, of course, sets off a chain reaction that turns the entire future into a dystopian society. Very Back to the Future II-ish .
    Tori kept staring at the TV, her mouth dangling wide enough to catch an army of flies. Noella said nothing, just sat beside her, and then during a commercial leaned over and said, “Have you seen this episode before?”
    Tori nodded. “This is my 11th time,” she said. “I used to have it on DVR at our old house, but when we moved, we had to give the DVR box back to the cable company, which stinks because I had saved all my favorite episodes on there. This episode is on right now. So I need to start my collection all over.”
    “This one is my favorite,” Noella said.
    Tori looked over at Noella, as though seeing her for the first time. “ You watch this show too?”
    “Yeah,” Noella said, “Although I don’t think I’ve seen it 11 times!”
    “This episode is awesome, but not as good as Summer Belongs to You! ”
    “Which one is that?”
    The eight-year-old leaped to her feet and started pacing in front of Noella. “It’s the one where Phineas and Ferb plan to travel around the world on the longest day of the year so they can create the ‘Biggest, Longest, Funnest summer day of all time!’”
    Tori jumped up and down, laughing out loud, her love for the show contagious.
    Noella laughed, “Yeah, that one is pretty good.”
    “Aren’t you a little too old to watch Phineas and Ferb ?” Tori raised an eyebrow. “A bunch of kids at my old school used to make fun of me for watching it because they said it was a baby show, and I’m way younger than you.”
    “The kids at your old school are dumb,” Noella said. “ Phineas and Ferb is smarter than a lot of grownup stuff. I was 12 when the show started, but it was like my favorite show after the first day. I love all the songs and the recurring jokes, and I love watching Candace try to bust her brothers. The show always made me laugh, and I used to watch it with my friend, Sam, and last summer I even watched it with my old friend, Becca.”
    “Yeah, I like how Candace is always trying to bust her brothers,” Tori agreed, “but I like the newer episodes better because she’s not as into busting, and they do different