Page 17

*plans*

B ECAUSE H AMBURGER.

“She’s obviously, uh… a little eccentric,” Jackson said the minute the door to the kitchen closed behind us, and we started walking down the hall.

“Obviously,” I agreed, noticing the hallway was totally deserted. I had no idea how much time had passed since we’d visited Archie; could’ve been five minutes, could’ve been five hours. Regardless, it didn’t appear any other students still remained at school. “But what if she is?”

He looked at me like I’d burped the alphabet. “You can’t be serious.”

I stopped walking and grabbed his arm. Pulled him to a stop and stepped a little closer, because I needed to convince him to try. It was my only hope. “It all sounds unbelievable, but something turned your hair blond. Something got you the senatorial appointment when you didn’t even apply. Something caused you to grow six inches overnight, Jackson.”

His throat moved around a swallow, and his bright blue eyes moved all over my face, like he was trying to solve a puzzle. Reach a decision.

I knew he was probably struggling with the idea of losing his physical transformation, and I felt a little pinch in my chest at the thought of him being sad.

“I’m sorry that you’ll have to give up your… everything in order to fix number four.”

His eyes narrowed. “You are?”

I nodded, but didn’t know what else to say, because as much as I hated him being sad, we couldn’t give up.

“But we still need to try, don’t you think?” I asked. “For your parents’ sake? I mean, if we spend a couple hours buying fish and trying to reverse the magic and it doesn’t work, what have we lost? Nothing.”

“Well, we’d have lost four fish in a hole,” he teased, his eyes squinting around a smile.

“And our dignity, of course,” I added, smiling along with him.

“Of course.”

“But I’m willing to try because I need that final wish and you need it to not be granted for you. Is it really that big of a deal to give this a shot?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t say no, either.

He was still smiling at me, smiling in a way that made my cheeks get hot.

“It’ll be an epic adventure,” I said, blinking and looking away from him, wondering what that had been. Chill, Emma. “Running around in the forest with a sack of catfish selected especially for the Flords? That is the stuff of legends.”

“An epic adventure,” he repeated, sounding almost reverent as he said the phrase.

“So…?” I said, hoping he was in.

“So.” Like a switch had been flipped, Jackson was all in. “We need to buy some fish.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, trying to remember her every word. “Although maybe we should ask where she got the fish, just in case it’s still in business and we can replicate down to the detail.”

I turned and jogged back to the kitchen, but when I opened the door, Archie was gone.

And so was all the evidence of our conversation.

“Whoa.” I looked around, and every stainless steel surface in the kitchen was bare, entirely free from wildly drawn sketches of catfish and magical rhymes. We’d been gone for, like, one minute .

“Don’t say it, Rockie.”

“I won’t,” I said, shaking my head in awe. He could deny it all he wanted, but the only way someone could erase everything that quickly was by using magic. It was physically impossible for anyone , much less an old person, to wipe it away instantaneously. “But you know I’m right.”

We spent the entire walk home coming up with a plan to do the fish thing. He was convinced his great-aunt would give us a ride wherever we wanted to go, so we decided to tell our parents we were going to a “Saturday science hike” that was available for extra credit.

I knew my mom wouldn’t question it because I always wanted extra credit and I never broke the rules, and he seemed confident that his parents wouldn’t, either.

“How are we going to get forty pounds of catfish, though?” I asked when we turned onto our street. “I mean, is that something stores carry on the regular? And how much will it cost?”

“Money is no object, Rockford,” Jackson said like he was a billionaire. “I won a five-hundred-dollar gift card to Haverman’s Grocery last year and have only used it for Red Bull and candy bars. I’ve got all the fish funds we could ever need.”

“Wow,” I said around a laugh, mostly because he was puffing up his chest like he was flush with cash. “So impressive, Daddy Warbucks.”

“I am, in fact, King Daddy of Haverman’s Grocery.”

“King Daddy does not sound as cool as you think it does,” I teased, rolling my eyes.

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, peasant.”

It was a little shocking how much fun I was having with him. Not even that, though—the shocking part was how comfortable I was with him. How comfortable we were with each other. Being with Jackson suddenly felt like being with Allie or Kennedy.

Was he becoming my friend?

That couldn’t be possible, could it?

I wasn’t sure whether he was or not, but I was sure glad he was there. Trying to transfer the magic by myself would’ve seemed overwhelming. But, somehow, doing it with Jackson made it seem possible.