It was only when he felt an uncomfortable pressure building in his head that Cliff remembered he had to breath, and his nerves did a panicky twist he tried and for a moment, he thought he'd forgotten how.

Mrs. Scarsborough had clutched his arm in the same place again, and the wince of pain brought him back. "That settles it, then."

"Wait. He IS wearing the Wolfing uniform. Or at least some of it," Mr. Scarsborough said, examining Cliff closely.

"He does go to Wolfing. And we are in the same class," Bette said quickly. "But I don't know how he found out about the Donor's Dinner and I definitely don't know why he's here."

She looked him directly in the eyes as she spoke. In the dark pit of Cliff's stomach, something red and hot sparked. "That isn't true." He said.

At that, Mrs. Scarsborough began yanking him down the steps. "Jealous of my darling daughter's success, are we? Want to take our family down a peg in the loudest way possible, do we?"

"Lucky your mother and I were the ones who caught him. His babble about our family would have been ruinous otherwise," Mr. Scarsborough was saying to his daughter.

Cliff and Bette only broke eye contact once she'd disappeared behind the terrace. The waiters had returned to mingling in the kitchen, and while holding Cliff out of sight, she told them it was all hands on deck in the dining hall. They cleared the room like their lives depended on it and she hauled Cliff out through the service entrance, nearly dumping him to the ground.

"The chauffeur!" Cliff said.

"Spouting nonsense won't fix this for you once I alert security," she said as she was closing the door.

"No-he saw me! He-"

Mrs. Scarsborough's jaw fell and Cliff understood immediately he shouldn't have said that. "Someone on staff here knew you were skulking and did nothing?"

"No! I'm just saying, I had the food with me and there's someone other than Bette who can confirm it. He should still be here! Your chauffeur, Duvall!"

He didn't know why he bothered. Even if he could prove it, there was no chance he'd be enjoying the rest of the day, or indeed any day, in the company of any of his Wolfing classmates.

Uncertainly, she stepped outside with him. Mrs. Scarsborough made sure no security guards glimpsed him by going ahead and dismissing all of them with some excuse or another. They arrived at the street, empty of any and all human life.

Then he saw the checkerboard limo.

"So, you do know which limo is ours," Mrs. Scarsborough said, catching his gaze. "Though that alone proves nothing. You've already pulled me quite far enough away from my evening-"

"I spent over two hours with him chauffeuring me and Bette. He'll tell you I'm not lying!"

Without waiting for her, he sped off to the limo. Coming around the driver side, there was blue glow around the headrest that illuminated the inside enough for Cliff to see Duvall's bored expression watching him right back. The clop-clop-clop of Mrs. Scarsborough's heels were coming around the car, and he saw Duvall mouth something. Almost immediately the blue light died away.

He reached over and the glass moved a tenth of an inch when Mrs. Scarsborough rapped on it to get his attention and shook her head no. The window closed back up. "I'd like to hear his story without any input from you, thank you," she said. She held her cellphone up to her eye and the screen changed color. Angling it to her face, she said, "Duvall."

The headrest shone purple. "Good evening, Madam Scarsborough," the handsome voice said.

"Duvall, do you know this young man?"

Once more, he turned to Cliff. "I do not," his voice said clearly from her phone. "I sincerely apologize, Madam."

The purple light encircling the headrest dulled to nothing.

"You have five minutes to begone from this place. If I call Duvall after that time and you're still out here, your next conversation will be with the police. And let me assure you, if the name 'Scarsborough' comes up, you will regret it."

Duvall nodded at his Madam as she walked back over to the main entrance of the property, and when she was gone, stared straight ahead, giving no further acknowledgment of Cliff whatsoever.

Five minutes. Cliff seriously wrestled with simply standing there until he was taken away. The light at the end of the tunnel was really an oncoming train, and he'd managed to be run over by it. He was such an idiot for thinking he could do this he was so close, so frustratingly close.

"Leave, kid."

His head snapped up. Duvall had cracked the window, but wasn't looking at him.

"You could've backed me up!" He shouted.

"I don't know you. But I do know Madam Scarsborough. And it's in your best interest to LEAVE, kid." He reached through the window and shoved Cliff on. Mechanically, his legs kept up the pace.

Cliff marched into the night in a random direction, his mind replaying the events of the party over and like a movie marathon of the same zero star film. When he passed a set of giant homes he knew he hadn't seen on the ride over, a cold, unfamiliar fear creeped down his spine. He was lost. Unbelievably so. Faster than he meant to, he stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out the family cellphone, but with it, something else fell out.

A chunky envelope, its blue and dark red rings standing out even in the low visibility of night. The fact that Dad had gone through the trouble to make multiple copies of this dumb kiddie joke was a stinging insult on top of the failure of tonight. He'd already thrown one out, how many more was he going to discover hidden in random places?

He ripped the top and nearly dropped it in surprise when it suddenly doubled in weight, which made it all the more satisfying to fling as hard as he could in a random direction, feeling slightly better as he watched it disappear into the darkness.

Something searing hot hit Cliff full-force, and he sat down hard in the cracked asphalt of the road.

The night, totally still one moment ago, was now ablaze. Off in the direction he'd flung the envelope, one of houses was quickly becoming a three-story, fireball.

The first, insane thought that came to Cliff's mind was It's beautiful. He found it hard to pull his eyes away from the purplish-black flames.

Almost instantly, it was replaced by What did I DO? He'd heard of people sending poison and glass and limbs in the mail, but never a letter-sized match. It didn't make any sense. As his chest heaved, he realized, wait, that didn't make any sense. Even if it was a match, it would need to strike something.

Maybe it fell out and sparked off the side? The worried voice inside him wondered.

No, that was stupid too. He couldn't be responsible for this. He refused to believe it.

A hundred feet out in either direction, lights were coming on in the neighboring homes. That meant people. People meant police. If they caught him out here, the only non-resident for what had to be miles right before the fire started, he very much doubted he'd have Wolfing to worry about any time soon.

He sprinted away.

For hours Cliff walked, following the blue line of the GPS app. Resentment burned in his chest the entire while, matching the sluggish tension builing in his legs from the incredible trek. Staring at the screen and opting to go the long way around a particularly dark road, he thought about actually calling his Dad. A pang of guilt shot through his anger - there was no chance that was going to work. But thinking about his Dad got him thinking about those stupid letters, and those stupid letters got him thinking about how badly he wanted to escape Wolfing, and thinking about how badly he wanted to escape Wolfing got him thinking about how downhill this night had gone.

Bette is the one who'd rang his doorbell earlier that day. Bette is the one who put him up to this. Bette is the one who picked him for her grand plan. All she had to do was tell the truth and he'd be in there. His whole life would have turned around.

2 Silverspiers Manor came into view, a brightly lit spire only another few minutes' walk away.

The silvery shape reminded him of the serving dishes. He could see them now, set meticulously with his dessert. Right about now the richest families connected to Wolfing would be snacking like pigs on the fruits of his labor.

He stopped halfway to the front door of the lobby. The bush with the missing branches, the one Bette had messed with, was still there, bearing the damage she'd caused.

He wished he'd brought the horrible failures. He wished he could have seen the looks on their faces when they bit down and got a disgusting mouthful. He wished he'd given in to his first instincts and just ignored her until she went away. They didn't deserve it. Not a single one of them. Least of all the Scarsboroughs. And least, LEAST of all, Bette.

With a pop! a familiar seving table stacked high with half-empty serving trays appeared ten feet in the air. Cliff watched, all anger replaced with confusion, as it hung for a second longer than it should have. Then, remembering gravity's existence, it plummeting straight to the ground, smashing four and a half bushes nearly flat.

A yowl that curled Cliff's skin pierced the night, and again he saw a dark shadow zag out of what remained of the inkberry bush, now devastated with shards of glass and splinters of wood. Cliff hoped he didn't recognize that particular shadow, but it was gone as soon as he'd had the thought.

His anger ebbed. Cliff was trying not to imagine how his first day of sixth grade would go when he pulled out his entry keycard, held it up, and wasn't greeted by the front door's telltale ding.

He looked up and waved it again. No ding. And there was something weird about the door-it must have been a new kind of super-pure glass, because he couldn't even see his reflection in it. He wasn't sure what to do, since nothing had ever malfunctioned before. The landowner was pretty thorough about sending all kinds of maintenance crews to regularly check just about everything from the shininess of the floors to the pressure of the water.

Maybe pressing the keycard would work? He went touch it to the pane of glass - and his hand went through. Cliff took a tentative step forward.

There was no front door to 2 Silverspiers Manor.

Explaining the table, bushes and now this door to his Dad, whenever he decided to show up, was out of the question. Cliff didn't think twice about just going in. The shortest route to his bed turned out not to be the simplest when he got to elevator and was met with a hard grinding noise whenever he pressed its call button. This terrible night had every intention of dragging for as long as possible. It took him a moment to locate the stairs nestled into a far corner of the building.

Fifteen flights of stairs later, Cliff was grasping his knees and gasping for breath, wishing his shirt wasn't stuck to him with his own sweat, weighing him down. He'd done more walking in the last few hours than he had in the last few years. He ambled towards their door, fighting the cloud of exhaustion muddying his senses, when he stopped short ten steps away.

There were voices. Multiple voices. Coming out of their door.

Cliff knew with one hundred percent certainty his Dad was not even close to being back, and the odds that a maintenance crew was hanging out in their condo after midnight was incredibly unlikely. His gut gave a panicky twist. He forced himself to draw shorter, quieter breaths, and began stepping away, not taking his eyes off the door. Burglars. Or kidnappers. Or killers. The door was open and someone had just wandered in and he was so stupid-

There was a crack! and he backed into something so suddenly it sent him spilling forward.

Behind him stood an older white teenager dressed like he was ready to scale a mountain. For the second time that day, he offered Cliff a hand. "Hah, I told Tatiana that racket was my little buddy,"

"What are you doing here?" Cliff scuttled away on all fours, wishing he'd grabbed a shard of glass outside. "Were you the one who stole the doors? My dad's armed and right behind me, he's gonna-"

The guy burst out laughing, hugging his sides as he did so. "Those fiery arm things? I don't understand how those can be scary - except to the poor joker whose body's burning up."

"You're scaring him, Bauer," a woman's voice behind him said.

Cliff turned. A thin, dark-skinned woman with braids piled on her head watched him, her expression was gray and neutral, the complete opposite of the flowy golden robes she wore. "Hello Mr. Noa. I assume you got their letter?"

"A letter? What letter? We don't get bills here-b-but we don't have money, or-"

Still laughing big, Bauer the mountaineer joined the woman. Cliff had no idea what was so funny, but him being there meant the coast behind him was clear. He sprang up, bolting back towards the stairwell door.

"Tituba's toil," the woman's tone was exasperated. Cliff's heels pounded the carpet of the hallway, but, impossibly, the door wasn't getting any closer. In fact, he became aware that the harder he ran, the further away it got until he was full on slipping backwards even as he sprinted away from the two.

He slid back and the carpet whirled underneath him, making him face to face with the woman holding him at gunpoint. His heart did a flip of terror until he registered that what she was holding was a little too long and straight and wood-colored to be a gun.

"How are you doing this? Wh-what's going on? What do you want?" Cliff asked.

The woman pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "That's a no on the letter, then. This is gonna take so much more ti-"

The guy, Bauer, practically pushed her out of the way to grin in his face. "Cliff - you're a wizard!"

They were crazy. Completely certifiable. The unnatural way the carpet was bunching up around his ankles made it clear he wouldn't be able to flee. So Cliff obeyed his very next instinct and slammed his fist into the guy's nose, watching in surprise as he actually fell hard on his rear from the impact.

"That's quite enough of that," the woman said. "Adhereo." and she flicked the thing in her hand through the air. Cliff punched himself in the shoulder so hard he'd have fallen over if the carpet didn't contort to keep him on balance. No matter how much he wrenched or flexed he couldn't free himself. She swept her arm to her side as if beckoning Cliff past and the carpet obliged, speeding him from the hallway and through his door, at which point the tile of the condo took over, rippling like water as he glided across it to the sofa. The speech on the DVD player was still paused on the same scene as that morning.

"What is this?" Cliff shouted. "Am-Am I going insane? I don't understand!"

The woman walked in, regarding him like a project that wasn't coming together as it should. Bauer trailed her, gingerly tapping at the bridge of his nose.

"M for accuracy, nailed me dead center. Not so much power, though." He produced something jet black from his waistband, and the for the second time that night Cliff couldn't breathe as he awaited being held at gunpoint. But though his was darker, as he held it aloft, he pointed it at himself. It was also way too straight to be a gun. "Hm. Think I won't even need to do anything fancy here."

"Mr. Noa, please." The woman was sitting in front of him in a chair he'd never seen before that definitely hadn't been in his home several hours ago. "As Bauer said, you're a wizard. I'm a witch." She produced a familiar-looking letter from her pocket. "And we need you to read this."

Cliff's trembling hand went to his pocket. He thought it had burned up, but she clearly held his torn letter. "How are you doing that?"

This caused Bauer to chuckle again, and the woman's tone was short as she gave him a tight smile and said, "Magic."

She must have defused the letter, Cliff decided. As long as he complied, he figured he could stall until his Dad got home. Now that was a grim prospect. At first he made to move his dominant hand before being reminded that it was stuck to the crook of his shoulder. He accepted it from her, but the movement of leaning forward to do so caused his phone to fall out.

"Ooh," Bauer's gaze instantly moved towards it. "I've heard of those. It's a modular phone."

"You can have it!" Cliff said. "Anything you guys want in here, it's yours!" The only thing Cliff cared about would never be worth anything to a thief anyway.

"Bauer, please! You keep scaring him and we'll be here till morning! Sit down!"

Only then did he seem to take serious notice of Cliff's expression, which wiped the grin off his face. He slumped into the adjoining loveseat and grinned apologetically. Then, turning to his accomplice, he said, "You know Tatiana, you can just call me Taz."

"And you can just call me Miss North," she said, her voice full of irritation.

Taz Bauer and Tatiana North. They hadn't killed him yet and they didn't care if he knew their full names and faces. Plus, if they'd gone through all the trouble to rig this insane moving walkway setup with the floors and... and... invisible gluestick guns for his hand... maybe just doing what they said was for the best.

One-handed, he struggled for several minutes with the seal, but finally managed to pop it open. He wiggled the letter free and once it was no longer enclosed by the envelope, it unfurled.

ILVERMORNY SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Dear Mr. Noa, it is with great pride that we inform you of your acceptance to Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The schoolyear begins August 26th. Please confirm by OSPS no later than August 18th.

Yours truly, Vice Headmistress Vesta Robles.

"Why'd you stop?" Taz Bauer asked.

"My Dad." All the fear and uncertainty and anxiety burned away, replaced only by a heat spreading all over his face. "I thought we were past stuff like this. I'm not a little kid and I don't need him to pull out all the stops on stupid lies."

"Mr. Noa." He met the woman, Tatiana North's, eyes. "This is no joke. And your father-oddly absent in the middle of the night as he may be-is not involved. Please, continue."

First-year students in the 2024-2025 academic year will require:

Chadwick's Charms, Volume 1 by Chadwick Boot
A Plurality of Potions
by Norma Weir
Foodchain Fantastica: From Foxgloves to Firedragons
by Verity Rockaway
The Spelle is Caste: Dissecting the Darke Arts
by Evonne Toutsoir
Transfigurations Of Today
by Chauncey Newcastle
Wizardry in Brief
by Loston Plott

Three changes of robes, a pointed hat for formal occasions and one winter cloak all in the Ilvermorny colors of blue and cranberry.

ADDITIONALLY

1 pair of work gloves (gumberoo leather or similar)
1 brass cauldron, size 2
1 set of writing quills and inkwells with refills of BLUE or BLACK ink
1 set of glass or crystal vials
1 personal-size scale
1 familiar (smaller than your person)

OPTIONALLY

1 personal broomstick (with a parent or guardian's separate signed permission)

PARENTS OF FIRST YEARS ARE REMINDED THAT A WAND IS PROVIDED ON THE PREMISES

Dutifully yours, Groundskeeper Barlitz

A credit-card sized perforated slip labeled "Confirmation of enrollment" clung to the the bottom edge of the letter, and on it were dotted lines awaiting signatures.

"I figured you'd go wild," Taz Bauer said. "Everyone I know who spent eleven years thinking they were a No-maj says they did."

"You guys break into our apartment, say this isn't a joke, but want me to believe I'm a-a wizard? And that magic is real? And that I can do it?" The internet was full of videos of people playing elaborate, reality-bending pranks on others or making celebrities, living or dead, say things they'd never utter in their lives. Even fake a fire. "All it would take is a tiny bit of setup and you guys could pull all this off."

Tatiana was watching him the same way he'd seen Dad glare at people shambling on the sidewalks, wishing they'd hurry up. "You're telling me you've never experienced anything you can't explain? Nothing that seemed to happen when you were especially angry or scared or hurt? Like say, Conjuring a serving table?"

Cliff's face heated. "That-that was..." What was that, though? He had no reasonable idea or explanation. And besides... "Can magic do stuff to food? Like make it taste better?"

"Not per se. You'll learn all about that at Ilvermorny. At best you can remove the imperfections," Taz said. Then, with a catlike grin, he added, "Whyever do you ask?"

Something uncomfortable bubbled in Cliff. It was bright and scary, and he couldn't let it take hold of him. "This Ilvermorny place... it's a real school?"

"Real for you. Not for that friend of yours you were so keen to impress."

"She isn't my friend!" Cliff shouted. Embarrassment flushed through him. "Sorry. You didn't deserve that." No, Bette wasn't his friend. No one at Wolfing was. He'd ruined things for himself back then, and he stomped all over his second chance tonight. But, if this was all real. If Ilvermorny really did exist out there. "Uh, how did you know that? About Bette?"

Taz clapped his hands over his mouth as Tatiana shot him a dirty look. "I told you to stay OFF those rundown No-maj deathtraps!"

"Well it's not my fault I got bored when you disappear for hours," he muttered.

"There was word of an important owl at the Woolworth Building, I told you that."

Taz put his hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry, okay? But he was having such a tough time trying to find out what a mignardise was, I had to help my little buddy out."

"Thanks for that," Cliff said. Without Taz, he would have had to wait for his Dad to get home before getting an answer, and by then it would have been too late. Not that it mattered. Not that anything that had happened since then mattered. Now that he'd directly screwed things up with Bette Scarsborough of all people, nothing was going to get better for him at Wolfing. But this letter in his hand wasn't a second chance. Way better, it was a completely new start.

"I know that look," Taz said. He was beaming at Cliff. "C'mooon, you know you want to. Just sign on the dotted line."

He waved what had to be a magic wand in the air, and out of nowhere a feathered quill came into existence. It fluttered into a waiting inkwell that also hadn't existed five seconds ago, at which point Taz pulled it out and offered it to Cliff. That shiny, nervous feeling swelled inside him as he made to reach for it - only to remember that his hand was currently barely more than an extension of his shoulder.

He wagged his elbow at Tatiana. "A little help?"

CRASH!

Cliff almost leapt out of skin. Taz had thrown himself backwards, toppling the loveseat and spilling himself onto the floor. The playful expression he'd bathed Cliff in all day was gone. Now, he gaped at him as if Cliff was a slasher waiting to descend upon his newest cornered victim.

"You're... you're..."

"He's what?" Tatiana's neutral, bored expression had evaporated as well, replaced with a warning fury. Cliff was half-afraid she was going to burn Taz with just her eyes. Taz looked from Cliff to Tatiana.

"You're... right to ask for help," Taz said, awkwardly righting the loveseat. "It's not a Permanent Sticking Charm but we'd be sitting here for hours waiting for it to come undone by itself!" He forced a little laugh as he pointed his wand at Cliff. "Solvo."

Cliff's arm flopped free. Gingerly, he tested it with a few rotations. His wrist was painfully stiff from the uncomfortable angle and burned at the flexes he was putting it through.

"Hours? I cast that spell, Bauer. It would be days," Tatiana said, her perfectly neutral expression returning, though Cliff couldn't help but feel her gaze was softer when she turned to him.

He tore the slip from the letter, and half-signed half-blotted it with the quill, which didn't really write the same way a pen did. The second he was done, Tatiana's hand looped under his wrist and guided it up. Cliff was puzzled for a moment before she hovered her fingers over his cuts. "Mm. Easily cured with some Wiggenweld, but I doubt that's in ready supply here."

"Aw, I'm sure there's a few dittany stalks laying around," Taz said. And when Cliff's blank look apparently refuted that fact, he cleared his throat. "I'm sure there's some moondew in one of these cabinets."

Cliff had never heard of moondew, and his lack of a response made that clear to Taz, who rattled off a dozen increasingly more out-there ingredients that only confused Cliff more and more before he admitted defeat. Sitting back in his seat and scratching his head, he said, "There's like thirty ways to make such a nothing potion and we can't do any. That's... I don't know how you all do it for so long."

"That took about three times longer than it really should have," Tatiana said, clapping her hands and rising from her seat. She turned, waved her wand with an "Evanesco" and it was gone immediately. She hauled Taz to his feet against his protests. "I will say, you seem to be a bright, pleasant young wizard Cliff. Ilvermorny will be lucky to have you."

She marched Taz up to one of the windows overlooking the sloping hills at the back of the building and with another movement of her wand like a conductor directing their musicians, their reflections disappeared, and broomsticks floated patiently just outside.

"By the way - your father's here. Good night, Mr. Noa." She practically threw Taz onto one broom and swung herself onto another, and they were zooming off, out into the early morning darkness.

Exiting their condo into the hall, he heard footsteps echoing below. Down in the lobby, Cliff watched his father do a confused shuffe around the completely missing front door. Still in his bright yellow security guard uniform, he shot a look up to Cliff, who shrugged.

"What in the world...?" Cliff's Dad was on yet another reread of the Ilvermorny acceptance letter. It wasn't until he looked at Cliff like he was crazy that Cliff fully abandoned the notion that this was not yet another ridiculous attempt to treat him like an idiot.

In fact, Cliff found himself frustrated at his Dad's skepticism (not that Cliff himself really had a leg to stand on). The missing window glass seemed more like it had just shattered under pressure to him than vanished. The carpet and tile that had been so alive less than ten minutes ago now sat still and unbothered, no matter how much Cliff prodded or slid or ran on them. The chair Tatiana had pulled from thin air truly wasn't anywhere in the any empty corners of the condo, and when Cliff shoved the quill and inkwell into his Dad's face, he did admit he'd never seen it before, but, "I don't know if I'm ready to take antique writing equipment as definitive proof of magic."

"All we have to do is send our signatures out. The deadline is tomorrow, and then after that I'll be off to Ilvermorny!"

"Is that this OSPS thing? What's that?"

Cliff's shoulders sagged a little. "I-I don't know."

"And these books, I've checked Google and there's no hits for these at all." His Dad paused, and when he spoke again his tone had become apprehensive, "Does the school provide them?"

"I'm not sure," Cliff said, sinking into the seat next to his Dad, who hadn't taken his eyes off his newest reread of the letter.

"These clothes, too... and the equipment. 'Cauldron'? 'Personal broomstick'? 'Gumberoo leather'? Huh, wikipedia does have a page on that, actually. It sounds like an inventory for a Spirit Halloween. Cliff, did you ask them how people get any of this stuff?"

"No." Was all Cliff could manage. He knew what he saw. He could still feel the dull throbbing in his shoulder from where he'd been forced to punch himself with that spell, but he was hardpressed to find a way to make his Dad understand that way.

An arm came around his shoulder and pulled him close. "It's... strange. Lots of things I can't explain happened tonight. But Cliff, if you say this is real, then I believe you. One hundred percent."

"You're just... taking me at my word that magic exists? And that I'm a wizard?"

"Why shouldn't I?" There was something expectant in his Dad's tone. Almost bracing. Cliff felt the conversation drifting into thorny territory and looked away from his Dad, settling on scanning the letter again.

...PARENTS OF FIRST-YEARS...

He shook his head. "No reason. But, thank you. That makes things easier."

He felt his Dad relax next to him, no doubt just as relieved to not have to go over that particular topic again. But there was still the looming problem of exactly how to tell these people at Ilvermorny that Cliff badly wanted to go their school. He was so stupid, not asking any real questions. Determined to disbelieve them no matter how much the truth stared him in the face.

He was wracking him brain trying to remember anything relevant when his Dad said, "Hold out your hand." At some point, his Dad had pulled his workbag onto his lap and was partway through pulling out a first aid kid. Once he had it out, Cliff pulled back his sleeve and laid it on top the bag. "Had to steal it from work. Real dumb of me not to keep one in the home."

Cliff held up his arm, which was now mummified from nails to elbow with Hello Kitty, Zootopia and Looney Tunes bandaids. "Thanks," Cliff said, fully distracted from his old train of thought by the patchwork of animals on his arm. They, however, jogged something new in his mind.

"They were probably the cheapest ones in the store. Rich people don't stay rich buying the most expensive everything, you know."

"No... it's not that. The animals. Tatiana said something about... about..." It was so close, on the tip of his tongue. He turned his arm over and saw a huge pair of eyes. "Owls! It was owls-something about owls at the Woolworth Building!"'

Another look of heavy skepticism passed over his Dad's face. "That, I have heard of. But it's pretty thin as far as clues go..."

"You said you believed me!"

"I do! It's just, this thing apparently has to be done no later than tomorrow and the Woolworth Building is... in New York. Oh my god, it's five hours away with public transportation."

Cliff couldn't help himself, he was overcome with a very sunny feeling. "That's perfect! You and I can get a little sleep and make an entire trip out of it! It'll be fun!"

"Cliff, I..." His Dad looked like he'd just found out he was going to have to eat a fridge full of expired food. "I can't. I've got a work thing I have to be at, probably all-"

It was all Cliff could do to stay standing. "That's it, then? You're choosing work over me the one time I need you not to?"

"It's not that simple, Cliff-"

"It's fine. I understand. I-I think I should go to bed."

His Dad at least gave him the the mercy of letting Cliff drag himself to his bedroom without further comment. He couldn't stop the stinging at his eyes. In one day Cliff had dreaded going back to Wolfing, gotten an opportunity to actually start making friends there, blown it up in the worst way possible, offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance of a completely new start...

And it was snatched out of his hands before he could ever enjoy it, by his own father. He got to his room and made sure the door was locked. Cliff drew the curtains closed, even though no one was around for miles to see in. Cliff found his Wolfing blazer, hanging right where he left it, and dug into the inner pocket. He pulled out a heavily creased photo of some random brown skinned woman throwing a haughty look over her shoulder. He flipped it over, and in what he now knew was his Dad's cursive scrawl, he read Happy 5th birthday, Cliff! I'm sorry I'm still away but I'll see you soon! Love you lots, Mommy.