For Nevermore Season 1

with. And I stopped worrying what everybody thought of me. And while I don’t have a ton of friends, I have two super good friends, Mako and Sam, and I wouldn’t trade them for 20 popular people!” She smiled at Tori. “Did I say two people? I meant three . . . Mako, Sam, and you.”
    Tori smiled back, then hugged Noella.
    A flush of guilt tainted their embrace.
    Tell her about the dream. Tell her now.
    Before Noella could say anything, Tori threw her off subject, “How’s Sa-am?” she asked with a big smile, adding a syllable to the song of his name.
    “Sam’s good,” Noella said. “We finally talked things out.”
    “Ooh! What happened? Tell me everything!”
    Noella laughed. Tori sounded just like Mako the way she said, ‘Tell me everything.’ Noella filled her in on all the gossip, and how even though Sam was still going out with Becca, Noella was happy with the way things were between her and Sam. Things might be a little weird for a little while, but in the end, she had her Sammy back, and all was right in the world . . . well, that part of the world, anyway.
    “You’ll be with him, someday. I can tell,” Tori said.
    “We’re friends — that’s good enough.”
    They had a snack of warm pretzels and juice boxes as the third episode of Phineas and Ferb started , while Noella tried to find a way to mention what she’d seen in her dreams, including the whole sleepwalking thing. Finally, she forced the question from her mouth.
    “Did you have trouble sleeping last night?”
    Tori looked at her, confused by the question. “Huh?”
    “Did you sleep through the night, or did you wake up? I know you said before that you had heard voices in the playroom and would sometimes go in there and hear things. Did anything like that happen last night?”
    Tori scratched her head. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure. Why?”
    “I woke up last night and saw the light on in your playroom and saw you standing there looking out the window. You looked like you were wide awake, but I couldn’t tell.”
    “Really?” Tori said, her eyes giant. She smiled, then slapped her hand on Noella’s knee. “No, you’re just messing with me!”
    “No,” Noella shook her head. “I swear. It was really weird. I didn’t know if you were awake or maybe sleepwalking. Do you ever sleepwalk?”
    “What’s sleepwalking?”
    “Well, it’s doing stuff, like walking around, even though you’re asleep. Lots of people do it. My dad said I did it when I was a kid. One time he said I almost went pee in the kitchen when I was sleepwalking!”
    Tori cracked up. “Eeew! You went pee in the kitchen?!”
    “No, I said I almost went pee in the kitchen. I didn’t actually do it.”
    Tori was laughing so hard, Noella could barely make out her words through her snorting laughs. “Did you ever go poop in the kitchen?”
    Noella fell into a full fit of giggles, then playfully shoved Tori. “No, I have never pooped in the kitchen!”
    “Yeah, right!” Tori said, her face now screaming red.
    Noella waited for Tori’s laughter to settle, then said, “So, I guess you don’t sleepwalk then?”
    “I guess not. I mean, how would I know if I was asleep?”
    “Your mom never said anything?”
    “Not that I can remember.”
    “Hmm,” Noella said, searching for a smooth transition to the trickier conversation.
    Noella watched as Tori laughed at Perry the Platypus outsmarting Doofenshmirtz, then waited for a commercial to get her attention again. “I’ve got something to tell you, and it’s a little weird.”
    “What?” Tori asked.
    “Know how you saw me come back from the other world?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You didn’t tell your mom, did you?”
    Tori shook her head. “No way, Jose!”
    “OK, well, I need to tell you about another thing, and I need you to keep it secret, too.”
    “Ooh, what is it?” Tori asked, excited. If hopping from one world to another was cool, the girl probably figured Noella could do stuff that was cool enough to have icicles.
    “I’ve been having these weird dreams. Dreams about this bad guy who is hurting people.”
    Tori stared, waiting for Noella to continue. Noella wasn’t sure how much she should say, or how much would be appropriate to tell an eight-year-old. Did most eight-year-olds know about serial killers? Or would Noella be throwing a brick through the glass of safety the girl lived behind? She didn’t want to do anything that would scare Tori too much or mess her up. But at the