Page 35 of Everything All at Once

I opened it up immediately and scrolled past the title page to the dedication.

To S.W. For all those years.

And for all the years I’ll never get.

S.W.? I had no idea who that could be. The last six Hatter books had been dedicated to my dad, my grandparents, Abe, Wendy, my mom, and me. Probably it was someone else my aunt had known in the writing world.

A new Hatter book!

It was the best possible news.

I could go to New York this weekend, on Saturday. I could ask Em to go with me—but she had a track meet in the middle of the day at some school an hour away from here. And I knew Abe and Amy were planning on a sort-of-cute/sort-of-nauseating marathon of John Hughes movies.

And there wasn’t really anyone else I felt like going with.

Unless...

But that was kind of weird.

It was weird to ask a guy you’d just met to go to New York with you, right?

But I guess I was in a weird mood. I picked up my phone and texted Sam:

Do you want to go to New York on Saturday?

Almost immediately:

Yes!

I set the phone on my nightstand. I turned the light off.

And then, in the dark, I stayed up for hours and hours.

For Margo and Alvin’s last adventure.

I woke up Saturday before my alarm, filled with excitement about the trip to the city. I saved the Hatter file to aflash drive and put it into my purse and took a shower as the sun was dawning.

It had only been a few days since I’d learned about the last Alvin and Margo book, but I hadn’t told anyone yet. It was nice to have it just be my secret—I was the only person in the entire world who had readMargo Hatter Lives Forever! It was thrilling, like the biggest, most important kind of secret. But it was finally time to share it.

I found Mom and Dad having coffee in the kitchen, and I placed Aunt Helen’s computer on the table between them.

Dad looked at the computer, then at me, confused.

“Who’s this?” Dad asked Mom.

“It looks a lot like our daughter,” she replied.

“Our daughter, Lottie?”

“We only have one.”

“And what time is it?”

“It’s eight, Sal.”

“And what day is it?”

“It’s Saturday, Sal.”