“How should I know?”
“I thought they go with their parents?”
“Yes. Supposedly. Knowing Finn, he’ll find a way around that.”
“Can he do that?”
“Wayne can.”
Jess nodded.
“Are you going out there?” Jess asked. “You could tell him about…you know.”
“I’m not going to tell him. That’s the point of a guardian angel. And I’m not going out there until we all leave for school. Are you kidding me? Mrs. Nash would kill me.”
“But he looks so…I don’t know…empty.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” Amanda said, sounding sad.
“We should smuggle him some food.”
“We need to get on the ship with them,” Amanda said.
“That’s ridiculous! As if! Mrs. Nash would—”
“Never know.”
“It’s a two-week cruise! How are we supposed to disappear for two weeks and…” But Jess caught herself. “Seriously?” she said.
“Why not?”
“We’ll be super tired,” Jess said. “Besides…we already took care of this.”
“But they don’t know her. She doesn’t know them.”
“So the OTs can’t possibly make a connection. It’s perfect.”
Amanda shook her head. “Think about it! We can sleep during the day.”
Jess nodded thoughtfully. “You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?” She hesitated and looked back out the window. “It’s not just saving the parks anymore, is it? For you, I mean.”
“Maybe not.”
“When did you know?” Jess asked.
“I’m not sure about anything.”
“I think it’s very cool, the two of you.”
“There is no ‘the two of us.’”
“You sure?” Jess said.
Amanda blushed. “I told you! I’m not sure of anything.”
She couldn’t leave Mrs. Nash’s early without raising suspicion. Getting showered and eating breakfast (two Nash requirements) seemed to take forever. Finally it came time for the girls to head to their school buses. Amanda met Finn on the sidewalk.
“Hey,” she said. “Rough night at your friend’s?”
“Did you get in trouble?” he asked.
“No. Jess covered for me.”
“We leave today.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Two weeks.”
“Fifteen days. But who’s counting?”
“Wayne warned us—”
“I was there, remember?”
“I thought we could Skype, maybe. There’s Internet on the ship.”
“Sure.” Mrs. Nash’s house had two computers on the first floor shared by eleven girls. They were dinosaurs, but one had been rigged with a camera and worked with Skype. You had to sign up on a clipboard to get fifteen minutes on the machine. Girls traded chores for extra Skype time, turning the minutes into a commodity. Amanda knew it was highly unlikely her minutes would ever link up with Finn’s cruise schedule, but she wasn’t about to be negative.
“And maybe…I mean if Jess dreams anything out of the ordinary…”
“I’ll email you.”
“Perfect.”
“You okay? About your mom, I mean.” She wanted to give him a hug. He looked frail. She didn’t have a mother, had never known her parents, but she could nonetheless imagine how seeing his mother with green eyes must have shaken him up.
“I guess.” Finn looked back at her like a lost puppy. “Don’t miss the bus.”
“I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “It’s a spell of some kind. The kids in school with the green eyes? Also a spell.”
“It explains a ton of stuff.” She counted on her fingers as she elaborated. “That maybe joining the OTs wasn’t voluntary like we thought; that the stuff they do isn’t really them doing it all; that there’s somebody running around doing this to people, including to your mother.”
“Maleficent,” Finn hissed. “I hate her. I’m going to kill her for this.”
“Be careful she doesn’t use that as a weapon against you.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, clearly angry.
“How do we know what she had planned for your mother? What if it’s nothing more than to scare you, to freak you out, to tick you off?”
“Then she succeeded.”
“That’s my point.” She could hear him breathing hard. “Finn?” She’d never seen him quite like this.
“How do we change her back? What if—?”