Z COULD ALWAYS FIND a reason to feel cursed. When he got a B on a test, he wondered about not getting an A. When he got an A, he wondered about not getting an A plus. He never got A pluses, so maybe he was cursed.

This was the last day of spring break, so he walked around town with his head down and his shoulders slumped. He should have been grateful for a whole week without homework, but in Z’s opinion, a week wasn’t long enough.

“We sit in class for months,” he told his buddies Dominic and Loop. “And all we get is one week off? I can barely catch up with the shows on the DVR.”

His buddies nodded because they wanted a longer vacation, too. As best friends, Dominic, Loop, and Z had a lot in common. They even looked alike, all of them with brown hair and brown eyes. Dominic was the tallest; Loop had the spikiest hair (he bragged about spending a lot of time making his bangs stand straight up), and Z was the cutest, according to the girls at school who couldn’t stop talking about his eyelashes. Apparently, his curly lashes were adorable, but Z didn’t think this was a good-luck thing. His curly lashes were nothing but trouble when they caused girls to sit in the chairs he saved for his friends or to send him quizzes with questions like, “What’s your favorite color?” “When’s your birthday?” “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Z kicked a stone. “I can’t believe we have to go back to school tomorrow.”

“This vacation went by faster than a car with rockets,” Dominic said.

“You mean faster than a plane with rockets,” Loop said.

“No,” argued Z. “Faster than rockets—just plain and simple rockets.”

Loop glanced at him. “That’s what we said.”

“No, it’s not. My rockets aren’t attached to anything like yours are. That’s why they’re faster. They’re the fastest of all.”

Dominic and Loop nodded and said, “Okay, you win.” Z smiled. He liked winning. He could forget about being cursed when he got the upper hand with his friends.

Truth was, the boys loved to compete against one another. They’d been doing this since their first day in kindergarten when the teacher took the class outside for recess, and Dominic, Loop, and Z got stuck on the sidelines after all the other kids took over the swings, seesaws, and monkey bars. That’s when Dominic pointed to the far border of the playground and said, “Let’s see who can reach that fence first.” After a quick “get ready, get set, go,” the amigos ran as fast as they could. Loop won that first race. But the next day, Dominic won the contest for who could hold his breath the longest, and a week after that, Z won for his expert tic-tac-toe skills. In fact, they had planned all sorts of contests for their spring break—a video game marathon, a Ping-Pong tournament, “pain games” like eating hot chili peppers or putting their hands over candle flames, and their own version of Fear Factor, which meant seeing who could handle roaches crawling under his shirt or who flinched the least during horror movies. They had intended to have a grand vacation, but Dominic had to spend time with his father in Corpus Christi, Loop got grounded for going from As to Cs on his report card, and Z had to complete a ridiculously long list of “enrichment” activities, which felt like chores, because they meant hanging out with his older brothers and sisters.

“A whole week of vacation and nothing interesting happened,” he complained.

“At least it isn’t cold,” Loop said.

“Why would it be cold? It’s March already.”

“In some places, it’s still winter in March. The kids up north don’t have spring break until April.”

“It never gets cold in Victoria,” Dominic said. “Even when it’s a real winter month, like December.”

“Yeah,” Z added. “I’ve never even seen snow.” It was true. It only snowed two or three times every hundred years in their part of Texas.

His friends sighed because they’d never seen snow, either, and because there were so many things to complain about—like how they had to go back to school tomorrow, and how their families got on their nerves, and how they got clothes for their birthdays instead of video games.

“How many days till summer?” Loop asked as they made their way toward a shopping center on the corner of Laurent Street and Airline Road. The center had a furniture outlet, a store that sold scrubs for nurses, and gift shops called Pizazz and Rings ’N Things. The boys just meant to pass by, but then they noticed something new.

“Check this out,” Loop said, pointing to a shop called Conjuring Cats. Its display window had a cape and top hat hanging from a coatrack, a black stool with a wand resting upon it, and an easel with a poster of Houdini in a straitjacket, hanging upside down over the words DEATH-DEFYING ESCAPE.

Z didn’t know what the “conjuring” part of Conjuring Cats meant, so when they stepped through the door, he said, “You sell cats here?”

The lady inside laughed as if Z had asked a silly question. But how could it be a silly question? The cats were right there! A black one chased a ball, and a white one yawned and stretched on the counter.

“I would sell them if I could,” she said, “but she won’t let me.” She pointed to a girl who had her back to them as she dusted a shelf of DVDs. She had two long braids, and she wore a hot-pink T-shirt and jeans with hearts embroidered on the back pockets. She was listening to an iPod, humming and swaying a bit. Her music must have been loud, because she hadn’t turned around. Normally, Z tried to ignore girls, but this time he caught himself wondering if this one liked curly eyelashes.

After a few moments of awkward silence, he asked the lady, “So what do you sell?”

She waved her arm across the store. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”