I don’t understand it. The children are disappearing like rabbits.
—Willy Wonka

Monday, May 25, 4:15 p.m.
Jinxed

Now I know why Leo didn’t have much to say when I called to tell him about Sophie. He had something he had to say to me.

Leo called a little while ago and said he wanted to come over and talk.

I thought for sure it would be about what happened with Sophie at the diner. He’d been strangely quiet when I told him about it. I figured he’d had time to think on things.

But that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. When he showed up, we sat down on my front porch.

“April, there’s something I need to tell you,” said Leo.

“Do you have to have your tonsils removed?” I asked playfully.

“Nothing like that,” said Leo. He flashed me a smile, but it was easy to see he was stressed.

“What is it?” I asked.

Leo inhaled and exhaled several times like I’ve seen him do in yoga class. “An opportunity has come up,” he finally said.

“What kind of opportunity?”

“Remember I told you that my grandpa is a physicist and my grandma is a neurosurgeon?”

“Yeah.” I knew they were both scientists, but I didn’t know what kind or how it was relevant to our conversation.

Leo kept talking. “They’re in town for a visit.” He paused. He actually looked more nervous than he had when he asked me out. “Then they’re spending the summer in Costa Rica where my grandma is doing research. They invited me to join them for a month and do research in the lab with her.”

Leo looked at me to see if I was following what he was saying. “It’s an opportunity I can’t refuse.” I listened as he told me about how they would be studying brain activity and neural pathways in monkeys. Then, the impact of what he was saying hit me full force.

“You’d rather be researching monkey brains than spending the summer with me?”

“That’s not a fair question,” said Leo.

“You’ll be gone most of the summer.” It was a statement, but I was really asking it as a question, and Leo knew it.

He nodded.

My throat felt tight, like there was a wad of gum stuck in it. “We had a plan,” I said, like it was wrong that he was changing it. “We were supposed to spend the summer together.”

“I’m sorry,” said Leo. “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear. Are you mad?”

“Yeah,” I said, like it was pretty obvious why I would be.

I was mad at Leo for going away when we’d decided to be together. I was mad at him for choosing monkey brains over me. But I was also upset that my summer I’d so carefully planned was pretty much ruined. Tears were starting to form in the corners of my eyes and I didn’t want Leo to see me cry. “I have to go.” Leo tried to grab my arm as I got up, but I jerked it away from him.

“April, wait! Can we talk about this?” he said.

I shook my head like there was nothing else to talk about.

Then I went inside, went to my room, and closed the door. I curled up on my bed with Gilligan and cried. I cried myself to sleep for the second time in less than a month.

When I woke up, Dad was sitting on my bed. “What’s wrong with my number-one daughter?” he asked.

So I told him. Before he owned the diner, Dad wrote a relationship column. I knew he’d have something to say about how Leo was being a bad boyfriend for leaving me when we had plans to both be home this summer. But he didn’t say anything like that.

“It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?” asked Dad.

It might not have been what I wanted to hear, but I couldn’t argue with it. “No,” I said as I put my head on Dad’s shoulder. “It doesn’t seem fair at all.”