Maggie is a somewhat neurotic girl entering middle school. Her world seems to be falling apart around her. Her older sister is changing, no longer enjoying playing with Maggie and Polly (younger sister) the way she used to. Her best friend forever is changing, always hanging out with a different crowd of girls at school and rarely including Maggie, while a weird girl seems to have decided Maggie is her best friend, Maggie's parents don't seem as happy together as they used to, her neighbor who raises the adorable rabbits she loves is going to sell them to a restaurant, she begins to realize that another neighbor, a bully boy, is abused at home, and to top it all off, there's a murderer on the loose somewhere nearby!
Maggie tries to cope with and control all these things by observing her superstitious obsessions with even numbers, counting, and uttering little quasi-prayers in pairs.
A likable cast of characters is a nice book that is surprisingly lighthearted for a YA book that begins with a murder.
Maggie tries to protect ( )