Suzanne Nelson

Nitty Luce, an orphan thief, befriends a fugitive elephant named Magnolious and finds refuge in Fortune's Bluff, a town ravaged by dust storms and whose inhabitants have seemed to lose all hope.

"Then a ghostly pale girl moves in next door. But every time Libby tries to talk to Julia, she has a strange way of disappearing. And when Libby sees the words Help Me scrawled on Julia's bedroom window, she starts to suspect that something seriously creepy -- supernatural, even -- is going on."--Back cover.