After a year at Hillsdale High, Haley thinks she knows what she’s in for as she starts her junior year. She knows what to expect from the it girls, the brains, the rockers, and the artists. She knows how to handle drunken disasters, shoplifting scandals, IM warfare, and out-of-control false rumors. But none of the lessons learned during her sophomore year can prepare her for this dilemma: what’s Haley supposed to do when everything they’re saying about her is true? Liz Ruckdeschel was raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey, where What If . . . is set. She graduated from Brown University with a degree in religious studies and worked in set design in the film industry before turning her attention toward writing. She currently lives in Los Angeles. Sara James has been an editor at Men’s Vogue, has covered the media for Women’s Wear Daily, and has written about fashion for InStyle magazine. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in English literature. She lives in New York City and Los Angeles, California. ENDLESS SUMMER Fall has a certain appeal come the dog days of summer. "I wonder if there's a way to make the music play backward." Haley Miller, slumped on the couch in her father's study in a pair of cutoff overalls and a tank top, snapped her head toward her seven-year-old brother, Mitchell, who was busy fiddling with her MP3 player. "What did you just say?" "Nothing." "Say it again." Mitchell didn't reply. "Come on, Mitchie. Humor me." "I mean, if I took your MP3 player apart and put it together backward, would it play music, you know, in reverse?" Haley could hardly believe her ears. She was so amazed she barely noticed that her brother was about to ruin her carefully programmed listening device. "One more time, Mitchie." "Why?" It wasn't what Mitchell said, but how he'd said it. For the first time in over a year he'd used complete sentences and spoken in a normal, human voice. Up until that very minute Haley's brother had insisted on speaking in a robotic monotone. Just. Like. This. It had worried Haley's parents no end, and of course drove her crazy. "Mitchell, what happened? You spoke. And not like an alien." "Duh. Why shouldn't I?" Mitchell said. "I don't live on an asteroid." "Dad! Mom!" Haley jumped up, grabbed Mitchell's hand and ran into the kitchen, where she found her father, Perry, and her mother, Joan, scraping corn kernels off three dozen ears. They were making creamed corn to freeze for winter. Freckles, the family's excitable dalmatian, stirred from a nap and began barking, caught up in the excitement of the moment. "Listen to Mitchell!" "Please, Haley," Joan said. "Between all the tests, exercises and recordings we've done with him, I can't take another sentence." "Just listen." Haley dragged Mitchell by the hand and stood him in front of her parents. "Okay, Mitchell. Go. Talk." Mitchell, who sometimes--make that always--seemed to enjoy bothering his big sister, just smiled and said nothing. "Talk or I'll break both your thumbs!" Haley snapped. "No!" Mitchell cried. "I need them for playing video games." "Exactly." She smiled triumphantly at her parents. "Did you hear that?" "I don't see what the big deal is," Mitchell said. "I didn't grow purple wings and fly." Joan's mouth fell open. Perry fell to his knees and hugged his little boy. "It's true!" "Oh, thank God," Joan said. "Just in time for second grade, when the teachers don't take to eccentricities quite so kindly." "What happened, Mitchell?" Perry asked, tousling Mitchell's hair. "Who deprogrammed you?" "Yeah," Haley said. "It must have been hard to keep that robot gag up for a whole year." For much of that time, Haley's parents had been dragging Mitchell from expert to expert, trying to understand their son's quirky stutter. Psychologist after psychiatrist after speech therapist had tested Mitchell and declared, much to Joan and Perry's dismay, that the robot voice was probably just a phase. "Just a phase?" Joan kept uttering. "His imaginary friend, Marcus--that was a phase. The only-eating-brown-foods bit one winter--a pretty time-consuming but ultimately harmless phase. But this? I've never seen anything like it. And I've read all the textbooks." Since no one seemed to be able to help little Mitchell, the Millers finally just decided to let it go for a while and see if, in fact, he would outgrow his strange and annoying speech patterns. And, much to everyone's relief, it looked as if he finally had. "This is quite a milestone," Perry said as he jumped to his feet and left the room, returning a few seconds later with his camcorder. As a documentary filmmaker, he liked to record every event in the life of the Miller family, no matter how tedious or embarrassing. "Are you going to make a movie about me?" Mitchell asked, looking into the camera. "Do you want me to?" Perry asked. "I could make you my freshman class project," he teased. After taking the summer off