While Nikki designs tattoos for Chloe and Zoey in the library, Brandon sees her work and compliments her on her art skills. He asks if she’s entering the art contest, and Nikki says she isn’t sure because MacKenzie will probably win anyway, to which Brandon replies, “[Y]ou have more talent in your smallest burp than she has in her entire body” (198). Brandon leaves when Chloe and Zoey arrive, and the girls giggle about how it’s clear he likes Nikki.

Nikki takes her little sister to the movies, and their dad picks them up in his extermination van. To keep herself from being seen in the van, Nikki puts a plastic bag over her head, not caring that doing so is dangerous because she’d rather “suffer a slow and painful death by asphyxiation than be spotted riding around in the ‘roachmobile’” (214). The girls go with him to an emergency job at a fancy house, and he tells them to wait in the car. Nikki’s sister has to use the bathroom, and the house’s owner directs them to an upstairs bathroom since the downstairs ones have all been sprayed for bugs. While Nikki’s sister is in the bathroom, Nikki hears MacKenzie’s