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wallpaper, a sloped attic ceiling, white dressers, old-fashioned beds. Good, they were still at JoJo’s. Well, not good ...but at least she wouldn’t have to break in a new foster family.
    Allie stretched her legs, searching for the twins. Nothing. She was the only one in the bed.
    An explosion of giggly laughter from the kitchen told her where Madeleine and Luke were.
    “See? Allie told you to eat with a knife and fork!” Madeleine squealed. “She was right. You should listen!”
    Well, this was something Allie had to see. She hopped out of bed and trotted down the stairs. There, lying on the kitchen floor, was Luke. He was giggling and squirming, trying to push Thor away. But the big dog had pinned him down and was licking his face.
    JoJo and Jonathan were both laughing so hard that they were bent over the counter. And Arthur?
    Allie stopped in her tracks. Arthur sat at the table, half-smiling. His fake arm was lying on the table—just lying there, like that wasn’t totally disgusting. And he had the stump of his real arm soaking in a bowl of some sort of liquid.
    Despite the squirming, squealing boy on the floor, Allie couldn’t take her eyes off Arthur’s arm.
    “It’s infected,” Arthur said, when he saw Allie staring. “This stuff kills bacteria. I have to soak my arm in it a couple of times every day.” Arthur winced. “It kind of stings.”
    “Oh, uh...sorry,” Allie said.
    “Not your fault.” He swirled his stump around in the bowl before lifting it out and dabbing it with a towel. “It’ll get better eventually. I hope.”
    “Arthur, it will definitely get better—and soon,” JoJo said. “The more optimistic you are, the faster it will heal. I read that somewhere.”
    Allie rolled her eyes. Great. Another one of those life-is-what-you-make-of-it people.
    “Okay, we’re officially having a fresh start today,” JoJo said. “Arthur, put your arm back on. You and Jonathan take the kids out to the barn and teach them how to do chores.”
    “And what am I supposed to do?” Allie asked, frowning.
    JoJo raised an eyebrow as she pulled Thor off Luke’s now-clean face. “You’re one of the kids,” she said. “You’re going to learn how to do chores.”
    Madeleine and Luke bolted out the door without so much as a “good morning” to Allie. And after Jonathan stepped into his manure-covered rubber boots, and Arthur pulled on his fake arm, they trailed out, too.
    This was truly the weirdest family Allie had ever lived with—and she’d lived with a lot of them. Allie stuck her feet into a pair of old boots that were lying by the door and headed outside.
    Madeleine was leaning out the haymow window, waving at Arthur down below. “What happened to your real arm? Why do you have a plastic one?”
    Arthur stopped and looked up at Madeleine. “When I was born, my right arm was good, but the left one looked weird and the bones were missing. It wasn’t good for anything, so they amputated just below the elbow.”
    Arthur tried to walk into the barn.
    “Wait!” Luke called, squeezing his head out the same small window as Madeleine. “Is it like a robot arm? Can you lift cars?”
    Arthur grinned. “Nope, it’s even better. It’s called an iLimb. I can adjust the thumb using my good hand, so I can pick up things of any size.” He held up his fake arm and showed them, clicking the thumb flat against his palm (like he was about to pull on a tight sweater), then moving it all the way out so he could grab something big, like a basketball.
    “The older kind of prosthetics are like lobster claws—they open and shut, but the thumb is stuck in the same groove. This is a ton better,” he said. “It even has sensors that tell it to stop squeezing once I get a good grip, so no more crushed pop cans.”
    “Cool!” Luke stared at Arthur like he was a movie star.
    “Child Protective Services paid for that,” Jonathan whispered to Allie. “If they hadn’t, he’d be wearing one of those lobster