I’m super bummed. We just lost a bunch of points we needed. This is not going as planned.
Ten minutes later, Jane, Carlos, and Evie were sitting in an outdoor café in downtown Auradon, having lunch. Carlos was eating a sandwich, Jane was sipping on a smoothie, and Evie was, of course, typing something into her phone. Carlos hadn’t even wanted to stop for lunch. They’d already wasted enough time that day, but Jane had been insistent.
“You need to eat,” she’d said. “You need your strength. A captain is no good on an empty stomach.”
At that very moment, Carlos’s stomach had growled and he’d given in. Jane sort of had a point. Plus, they needed to regroup and come up with their next plan. They still had only ten points and he was certain Jay’s team had at least fifty-five, if not more by now.
“I can’t believe how far behind we are,” Carlos muttered as he took a sip of his chocolate milk.
“Yeah, but it was worth it,” Jane said. “Just look how cute you two are.” She had been scrolling through photos on Carlos’s phone and now turned it around so he could see the picture of him and Henry on the screen. “Look at his smile. You’re like a celebrity to him!”
Carlos scoffed. Some celebrity he was. He couldn’t even manage to get more than ten points in a scavenger hunt. He stared at the photo, focusing on the boy’s T-shirt and leather pants. With the matching white hair and those pants, Carlos and Henry could easily pass as brothers. Henry had called Carlos his hero, but Carlos certainly didn’t feel like a hero right then. He felt like a failure.
“This reminds me of a time when I was interning for Carina Potts and we threw a big birthday bash for John Darling’s son. He was turning seven. All the kids there were so adorable.”
“Carina Potts is my idol,” Evie said, finally setting her phone down. “She’s such a savvy businesswoman. You are so lucky to have landed an internship with her. What was it like? Was it the best summer of your life?”
Jane’s face fell. “Actually, no. Not really.”
Evie looked confused. “What? Why not? She’s supposed to be brilliant.”
“She is,” Jane said. “I just don’t think she thought I was very brilliant.”
Carlos’s gaze whipped toward Jane. “What? That’s impossible. Didn’t you spend like an entire weekend organizing her party supply inventory? And didn’t you stay up until three in the morning weaving flowers into a garden wall?”
Jane shrugged. “Yeah, but she must not have thought I did a very good job. She never gave me a single compliment all summer.”
“Jane,” Evie began gently, but it was clear Jane didn’t want to talk about it anymore, because she quickly interrupted Evie.
“That’s all in the past. It doesn’t matter. Let’s focus on the scavenger hunt.” Then she flashed Evie and Carlos a smile that Carlos could instantly tell was fake.
“Okay,” Carlos said warily, wondering if he should let this go. But it was clear from Jane’s expression that she was finished talking about it. He made a mental note to bring it up later, after the hunt was over. “Let’s review the list again and decide what to go after next.” He took his phone back from Jane and clicked on the message from Fairy Godmother he’d received that morning.
He scanned the first two items on the list:
They already had both of those. Carlos continued farther down.
He quickly skipped over that one, not wanting to be reminded of Evie’s failure to listen to him in the shop. He was still pretty frustrated about that.
That one was now a lost cause. After Henry and his mother had left the train station, Carlos had checked the information screens hanging in the terminal. The next train from Charmington wouldn’t arrive until seven o’clock at night. By then it would be too late. Which meant all hopes of getting number four on the list were gone. Carlos sighed and moved on.
Carlos looked hopefully up at his team. “Does anyone know what a violet-gold pixie fork is? It’s worth twenty-five points.”
Evie shook her head. “No clue.”
He then looked to Jane who, for some reason, wouldn’t meet Carlos’s eye. She was staring intently at the straw in her smoothie. Maybe she was still thinking about Carina Potts. “I think we should skip that one,” she said quietly. “It sounds hard.”
Carlos frowned and turned back to the list.
Carlos thought back to the conversation he’d overheard on the train platform, among the members of Jay’s team. Mal had said that convincing Grumpy to take a selfie would be impossible. But Carlos had to wonder if that was true. Twenty-five points would help his team a lot. It would put them at thirty-five, only twenty points behind Jay’s team, assuming they hadn’t already scored any other big items.
He glanced up at Evie, who had buried her face back in her phone. Her brows were furrowed and the salad in front of her was completely untouched.
“Evie,” Carlos said.
“Hmm?” Evie replied without looking up.
“Do you think you can talk Grumpy into taking a selfie with us? You are dating his nephew.”
Evie immediately shook her head. “No way. No how. That man is adamantly against photos of any kind. The only thing he hates more than photos is laughter. We should forget about that one because no one in the competition is going to get those points. It would take an act of magic to convince him to take that selfie.”
Carlos scowled and continued to the next item on the list:
But he couldn’t quite concentrate on any of the words on his screen, because something Evie had said was ringing in his ears.
It would take an act of magic to convince him to take that selfie.
An act of magic…
Carlos quickly glanced at the screen on his phone and reread number six on the list—the recipe for the gray stuff from Lumiere’s Bistro. He remembered Lonnie saying that, too, was near impossible. Lumiere rarely ever gave out recipes.
Suddenly, Carlos felt an idea forming in the back of his mind. An idea that would involve doing something he’d sworn to himself he would not do. But they were desperate. They were running out of time. They only had three more hours until the scavenger hunt was over, and they were way behind the other teams.
They just needed a little boost. A little shortcut. A teensy bit of help. To get them back on track.
“You know,” Evie said, setting down her phone, “like I was saying before, I think there’s a hazelberry tree on campus. We could go check it out and see about getting number eight.”
But Carlos dismissed her idea with a wave of his hand. “Actually, I have a plan!”
“Great!” Jane said, slurping up the last of her smoothie. “Let’s go!” Carlos stared at her. Was it just his imagination, or did Jane seem a little too eager to leave the café?
Carlos pushed his chair back from the table. “We just need to make a quick stop at my dorm room first.”