I’m not sure you will get this notebook back tonight. I’m not sure I can accept your latest mission. It’s only because my parents are away that I can even consider it. I’ve never been to a late-night music club before. And going out by myself in the middle of the night, in the middle of Manhat an? Wow. You must have a lot of faith in me. Which I appreciate. Even if I’m not sure I share it.

I stopped writing so I could take a nap. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to accept Snarl’s task, but if I did, I’d need to rest first.

I dreamt about Snarl. In my dream, Snarl’s face was Eminem’s, and he was singing “My name is …” over and over while holding up the red notebook to reveal a new page displaying dif erent names.

My name is … Ypsilanti.

My name is … Ezekiel.

My name is … Mandela.

My name is … Yao Ming.

At one in the morning, my alarm went of .

Snarl had infiltrated my subconscious. The dream was obviously a sign: he was too enticing too resist.

I checked in with Langston (passed out cold), then put on my best Christmas party frock, a gold-colored crushed velvet mini-dress. I was surprised to discover I’d developed more boobage and hippage since I wore the dress the previous Christmas, but decided not to care how snug it was. The club would probably be dark. Who’d notice me? I completed the out t with red tights and Mrs. Basil E.’s majoret e boots with the gold-tinseled tassels. I put my red knit hat with the poms-poms dangling from the ears on my head but pulled out some strands of blond hair from the front to cover one of my eyes so I could look a lit le mysterious for once. I whistled to hail a cab.

Snarl must have had me under some kind of spell because sneaking out in the middle of the night, on Christmas night no less, to a dive club on the Lower East Side was about the last dare that pre-notebook Lily ever would have taken on. But somehow, knowing the Moleskine was tucked away in my bag, containing our thoughts and clues, our imprints to each other, somehow that made me feel safe, like I could have this adventure and not get lost and not call my brother to save me. I could do this on my own, and not freak out that I had no idea what waited for me on the other side of this night.

“Merry Christmas. Tell me something that’s a drag.”

The bouncer she-man’s request at the door to the club would have confused me before Thanksgiving, but because of meeting Shee’nah through my caroling group a few weeks ago, I understood the system.

Shee’nah, who is a proud member of this “new now next wave of fabulosity” in the downtown club scene, had explained the drag-on ladies as being “not quite drag queens, not quite dragons, there for you to drag your woes to.” And so, to a very large, very gold-lamé-dress-wearing club bouncer who had a dragon’s mask on her head, I whined, “I didn’t get any presents for Christmas.”

“Sister, this is a Hanukkah show. Who cares about your Christmas presents? Come on, do me bet er. What’s your drag?”

“There may or may not be a person of unknowable name and face inside that club who may or may not be looking for me.”

“Bored.”

The door did not budge open.

I leaned into the drag-on lady and whispered, “I’ve never been kissed. In that certain way.” Drag-on lady’s eyes widened. “Seriously? With those boobs?”

Gosh! Ex-squeamish me?

I covered my chest with my hands, ready to bolt.

“You are serious!” the drag-on lady said, finally opening the door to me. “Get in there already! And mazel tov!” I kept my arms covering my chest as I entered the club. Inside, all I could see was screaming-thrashing-moshing crazy people. It smelled like beer and puke. It was as close an approximation to hell as I could imagine. Immediately I wished to return outside and pass the night chat ing with the drag-on lady, and hearing everyone else’s tales of woe at the door.

Was Snarl playing some kind of cosmic joke on me, sending me to such a dump?

Was Snarl playing some kind of cosmic joke on me, sending me to such a dump?

I was scared, frankly.

If I’d ever been intimidated trying to make conversation with a posse of lip-glossed sixteen-year-old girls at school, they were child’s play in comparison to the formidable group of club folks.

Meet [dramatic drumroll, please] the punky hipsters.

I was easily the youngest person there, and the only person there by herself, so far as I could tell. And for a Hanukkah party, no one was dressed appropriately. I seemed to be the only person there dressed festively. Everyone else was in skinny jeans and crappy T-shirts. Like teenage girls, the hipsters congregated in cooler-than-you packs, wearing bored expressions on their faces, but unlike the teenage girls I knew, I didn’t think any of them wanted to ask to copy my math homework or play soccer. The hipsters’ sneers in my direction immediately dismissed me as Not One of Them. I can’t say I wasn’t grateful about that.

I wanted to go home to the safety of my bed and to my stu ed animals and to my people I’d known my whole life. I had nothing to say to anybody, and fervently prayed that no one there would have anything to say to me. I was starting to hate Snarl for throwing me into this lion’s den. The worst punch I’d swung him was Madame Tussauds. But wax people don’t pass judgment and say to each other “What is that girl wearing? Are there taps on her boots?” when I walk by. I don’t think.

Ah, but … the music. When the band of young Hasidic punk boys took the stage—a guitar player, a bass player, some horns, some violins, and, strangely, no drummer—and let loose their explosion of sounds, then I understood Snarl’s master plan.