Nothing could touch Archie today. He was flying high.

Grandpa had spent the rest of yesterday being himself. His real self that Archie had so many memories of growing up with. Like he wasn’t even sick at all. It had carried through to this morning at breakfast, which put the whole family in a great mood. Mom had practically danced out the door on her way to work.

Archie breezed through his classes, aced a pop quiz in science class, made everyone laugh with a clever grammar joke in English, and nailed every US history question Mr. Gertner threw his way.

It was good to feel so invincible.

Even Spencer Harrington couldn’t bring him down. Not even when he pulled up his sleeve and literally started flexing in front of Desta. Archie just shook his head and floated by, pitying the guy’s shameless need for attention.

Then came the cherry on top. It was Friday, which meant the first meeting of the project study group was happening at Desta’s house.

Zig’s mom dropped them off near the driveway. Archie took in the scene as he got out of the car. Long, curvy driveway lined with manicured hedges. Beautiful front yard with geometrically perfect flower gardens. Giant red brick house with white trim.

Flawless. Any other day, Archie might have felt intimidated.

But not today.

The front door swung open and there she was, wearing a yellow sundress and a smile so bright it lit up the neighborhood.

“Hey, guys,” Desta said, beckoning them inside. “Glad you could make it.”

The boys greeted her and followed her to the dining room, where they found plush chairs circling a huge antique table.

Kamiko Sato was already there. They all said hello and sat down.

“Snacks and drinks are in the kitchen, so help yourself.” Desta sat, legs folded beneath her on her chair. “I can’t wait to hear everyone’s plan. Kamiko wouldn’t tell me hers until everyone got here.”

“Four people,” Zig observed. “Good, a small group’s better.”

“Actually, there’s one more coming,” Desta said.

“Who?” Archie asked.

At that moment, they heard the front door open and close.

“All right, I’m here, so now it’s a party.”

Despite his current invincibility, Archie felt his smile droop. Oh, come on. Really?

Spencer Harrington plopped down on the fifth chair. Captain Perfect had changed from the regular shirt he’d been wearing at school into a skintight tank top. A tank top in October.

“Who has two thumbs and is going to ace this project?” He pointed his thumbs at his own chest. “This guy.”

A grandfather clock chimed four o’clock. Desta sat up straight and folded her hands on the table. Suddenly she was all business.

“Should we get started?” she asked, though it didn’t come out like a question. “We know how important the Stone-Katzman Project is. You’re all smart and talented, and I think we can help each other make the best projects ever.”

“Got that right,” Kamiko said. “And we’ve got a secret weapon helping us with the essays. Right, Arch?”

“I’ll do my best,” Archie said, but he could feel his untouchable mood wavering. Somehow this project had managed to sneak right past his armor and hit him in the chest.

At least we don’t have to choose something yet.

“Let’s start by going around and sharing what our project is going to be,” Desta said.

Oh, great.

“I’m obsessed with animals. Definitely going to be a vet,” Kamiko said. “No clue what I want to say in the essay, but I’ve already got a vision for my booth setup. It’s going to rock.”

“Let me guess—petting zoo?” Zig joked.

“Close! I’m gonna partner with animal shelters and run a pet adoption drive right there at the exhibit hall.”

“Kam, that’s awesome!” Desta said. “It’s clever and original. I love it. Zig?”

“Culinary school and restaurant management—no big shock. But I’ll have a surprise.” Zig leaned forward, bursting with eagerness. “I’m creating a new ramen recipe, a fusion of Japanese and Hawaiian ingredients, with my own special twist. I’ll make and serve it from my booth. I’m even going to sear scallops over a live flame to add to each bowl.”

“Nice!” Archie said. “Dinner and a show.”

“Will you make some for us?” Kamiko said.

“Oh, you’re going to be my taste testers. I have to get it just right. As for the essay, I’m not sure yet, but we’ve got time.”

Spencer frowned. “Is ramen fatty? I don’t wanna pork out.”

Before he could stop himself, Archie scoffed. “Can’t you just run an extra mile?”

“I could,” Spencer returned. “And you should.”

Any other day, that would have cut him. Today, Archie just grinned.

“Come on, Spencer,” Desta chided. “You know you’ll eat it and love it, so stop fronting.”

That shut him up. Archie’s grin widened.

“I’m still going with surgeon, of course,” Desta continued. “Not sure how to present it and make it fun, though. Pictures of surgery would probably kill the mood.”

Archie remained surprised at her choice. She seemed so mechanical when she talked about it—there was no excitement behind her eyes. Still, maybe there were deeper reasons he didn’t understand, and as he’d reminded himself before, it wasn’t his business anyway. In any case, he wanted to help.

“We can brainstorm with you,” he said. “There must be something you could show that would draw a crowd. Some kind of mock demonstration, maybe.”

Desta nodded. “Thanks, that’s a good start.”

“I want to hear what Big Arch has planned for himself.” Spencer crossed his arms and leaned back with a smirk. “Gonna write us a poem?”

Archie didn’t seethe or retreat. Not this time. “Actually, yeah, it’s called An Ode to the Disaster That Is Spencer’s Face. Want to hear it?”

Zig, Desta, and Kamiko burst out laughing.

Archie braced himself for retaliation. He’d never come back at Spencer like that before, and someone with that guy’s ego wouldn’t—

Spencer laughed. “Good one.”

Wow. He took a joke.

“You’re sticking with what you chose?” Desta asked Spencer.

“Get by on good looks and charm? Yep.”

Desta gave him a long-suffering look, and Spencer held up his hands in surrender.

“Yes. Same thing I told you before.”

“Which is?” Kamiko said.

Professional baseball player, probably. Or professional owner of a baseball team. That would be a natural fit, considering that Spencer’s parents had donated most of the Blue Sun team’s budget. Archie would have bet every dime in his embarrassingly small savings account that Spencer would go for something that got attention.

“There are these big charity foundations,” Spencer said. “They have boards of directors that decide how they spend the money—like what people or causes to help. Figure I can do something like that. Plus, I can kick in some cash, and they wouldn’t even have to pay me.”

“Whoa,” Zig said. “How will you do it for free?”

“Oh, my parents set up a trust for me.” Spencer waved his hand dismissively. “Long as I don’t buy like a dozen mansions, I can live off it pretty much for life. Besides, you know someone’s gonna ask me to model their fancy underwear. Pretty sure that pays.”

Classic Harrington, thought Archie. He’d picked an idea that would make him look generous without requiring him to do any actual work. It felt too early in the process to say anything critical, but secretly Archie couldn’t help judging. Throwing money at a problem didn’t make someone a good person. Lex Luthor did that all the time in the comics, and it didn’t stop him from trying to kill Superman every month.

“So, Archie, what are you doing?” asked Kamiko.

“Oh, that’s okay, we don’t all have to share yet,” Desta cut in with a glance at Archie.

Which only made him fall harder for her. She must be thinking of their discussion in class and trying to save him from embarrassment.

“No, it’s okay. I haven’t picked one yet. I just . . . well, how can I know what I want to be for the next fifty years?”

“Just pick writer and sit in your booth typing all night,” Spencer said.

Archie nodded. “I might. Or I could teach you how to read.”

Everyone laughed again—even Spencer. Wow, Invincible Archie’s great with comebacks.

“Anyway,” Archie went on, “there are lots of different kinds of writers, and I probably couldn’t be, like, a science journalist and a novelist at the same time. Or maybe I could, but I don’t know how to make that happen. I mean, I’m only thirteen. How am I supposed to have all this figured out?”

“I get it,” Desta said. “High school lasts four years. That’s a long time. Who knows how we might change by the end of it?”

Archie felt himself smile, and amazingly, she smiled back. They broke eye contact before it got weird, though.

One by one, they helped each other dive into their projects. Desta had gotten each of them a folder with scrap paper and a fancy pen from the university where her dad taught, so that everyone could take brainstorming notes. Archie drew no closer to finding his subject, but it was satisfying to help his partners.

When it was time to leave, Desta leaned across the table to talk to Kamiko in a low voice. She opened another folder and took out a sheet of paper to show Kamiko.

While she spoke in an animated undertone, the folder sat open on the dining table, and Archie caught a glimpse of the contents: pages and pages of drawings. Everything from sunflowers and mountains to spaceships and robots.

They were amazing.

The smells wafting from the oven made Archie’s mouth water. Sitting at the kitchen table, he tried to ignore them and focus on his project notes. Multiple pages were crisscrossed with a thousand scribbles. A few phrases were circled, but most were already crossed out.

Writer—that was the easiest answer. Specifically, novelist. Archie loved writing and suspected that he always would. Especially when he combined classic old stories with newer ideas, or even real-life experiences, to create something fresh and unique. But did he want that to be his whole life, for the rest of his life? Deep down inside—that place where there should have been some instinct about the right answer—there was an echoing void. A whole lot of nothing.

The oven door squeaked as Mom opened it and pulled out a piping hot pizza. Very high heels clicked across the floor as she brought it over to cool on a countertop. Those shoes could not be comfortable. Archie had told her that he could make dinner and that she should focus on getting ready for her date, but Mom had wanted to make sure her guys were fed before leaving.

She seemed oddly anxious. Now that Archie thought about it, she had been that way about the last several dates. This time it was just more obvious. He wondered why.

Since Archie’s father had never been around, dates were just a natural part of Mom’s life. In the past, she’d always been super casual about it. Sometimes she dated, sometimes she didn’t. Most of the time she seemed okay, whether she ended up in a relationship or not.

Now the air around her felt different, and the more anxious she grew, the fancier her date outfits became. Archie wasn’t sure why things were changing, and it felt weird to bring it up. So he just hoped Mom would be able to relax again soon.

Leaning over the pizza, she inhaled. “Mmm, sausage and mushrooms. I’m jealous.”

“You can have some, you know. You made it.”

“No garlic breath on dates. It’s an unspoken rule. And I already brushed my teeth.”

“You brushed your teeth before going to dinner?”

Mom paused as if she hadn’t considered how odd that was. “Well . . . first impressions are important.”

“Dating is weird, right?”

“People are weird. So, yeah.”

She went about slicing the pizza into wedges, heedless of the danger it presented. Standing, Archie moved to the counter and gently pried the slicey wheely thing from her hands.

“You want to get sauce on your dress? Let me do it.”

Mom tousled his hair affectionately. While he sliced, she pulled a mirror from her purse and triple-checked her makeup.

What do you want to be?

The question bounced around his head like a song that wouldn’t quit playing. If he could choose literally anything, what would it be? Would life or the universe or whatever even let him follow a dream? He’d seen enough to know things rarely worked that way.

As he made the final slice, he glanced over at Mom. She had finished her checkup and stared into space now, lost in thought.

Life certainly hadn’t happened the way young Penelope Reese had planned. Right after college, she had moved to New York City to work on Wall Street—the fast-paced world of stocks and trading and other stuff Archie didn’t understand. She had lived for it.

Then came a marriage—sudden, disastrous, and over in a blink—to a guy who didn’t even stick around for Archie’s birth. For the first time now, Archie found himself wondering . . .

“Do you ever regret leaving New York?”

Mom’s head whipped toward him. “No! Why would you ask that?”

“Well . . . I mean, you had big plans. Then things happened and you wound up raising a kid in the middle of nowhere.” He shrugged. “Wasn’t it, like, the opposite of what you wanted?”

Mom looked pained. “I hope I’ve never made you feel that way.”

“No. I just wondered, with this project and everything.”

Mom looked into his eyes. “When it comes to you, I don’t regret anything for one second.”

“But it couldn’t have been easy.”

“Was it an adjustment? Of course, and sometimes I wonder what might’ve happened if certain things had been different. But the moment I first held you, I knew what I was going to do and I never looked back.”

“Why? I mean, how? Or, I guess, both.”

Mom paused, pondering. “When they put you in my arms, everything changed. I looked into your eyes and it was like I saw the next twenty years. Living in the big city with a job that kept me working all hours, never home, always stressed. You’d grow up without a parent around. Suddenly, what I had wanted before seemed so . . . trivial. I loved my job, but it didn’t hold a candle to how much I loved you.”

Archie began to understand. “So you moved back home, where you could . . .”

“Start over and build the life I wanted for us. I went back to school and picked something that would let me be home for dinner every night.”

“No regrets, then? Not even one?”

Mom seemed to look inward, her expression soft. “Raising you in this beautiful place, watching you have all this time with your grandparents—especially your grandfather—and seeing you growing into a good man like him . . . those memories are priceless, Archie.” Mom reached out and took his hands. “No big city could ever match them. Do you believe me?”

He really did. Smiling, she pulled him into a tight hug—awkward but heartfelt with the counter stuck between them.

“This probably looks ridiculous for anyone not currently hugging,” Archie said.

“Aw, that’s their problem.”

They laughed together.

Someone cleared their throat. They turned to see Grandpa standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing a full suit and a fedora. He clutched the handle of an old suitcase.

Archie stiffened. So did Mom. From the look in Grandpa’s eyes, they knew what was coming before he spoke.

“You have a fine establishment,” Grandpa began. “But we should be heading on home now. My, uh . . .”

He turned in a circle, looking puzzled.

“My wife must be in the car.” He patted pockets with his free hand. “Have we paid you?”

They had tried different ways of handling these situations. Some worked, some failed utterly, and sometimes a tactic that had been helpful once had no impact the next time. Every day was uncharted territory. So, how should they handle this one?

Mom stepped forward and held out her hand. “Of course. Let us help you with your bags, make sure you’ve got everything packed.”

So they were playing along today. Archie crossed his fingers that it would work. He tried to breathe normally. Steady, in and out.

Grandpa leaned back, eyeing Mom as if unsure he could trust her. Then he seemed to decide in her favor and handed over the bag. Mom lifted it onto the table and unzipped it.

“Let’s see what we have,” she said, drawing out each object she found. “A hammer. A wooden hanger. Half a loaf of bread. And a book.”

Archie came to Mom’s side, ready to lend support. The air around her vibrated with tension. She stared down at the items Grandpa had packed, as if caught between two paths. Her eyes welled with tears. Her lip was quivering . . .

Mom burst into laughter. As it poured out, Archie saw the tears retreat. The tension shattered like glass, and suddenly they were both laughing so hard that they had to lean on each other for support.

Grandpa watched them, puzzled at how oddly these strangers were acting but too polite to call them out on it. Eventually Mom recovered enough to close the suitcase and hand it back.

“You’ve paid, but dinner is included,” she said. “How about you wait in your room and we’ll bring it to you?”

Grandpa smiled and tipped his hat. “I suppose that’d be okay. Ma’am. Sir.”

He turned and walked back down the hall. They heard his footsteps on the stairs.

The quiet moment gave Archie time to reflect. From the outside, anyone who saw what had just happened might think he and Mom were callous or uncaring. They might see all the mistakes, all the reasons why what they’d done seemed wrong.

If you haven’t been there, you can never know what it’s like.

That’s what he would tell them. As time went on, and the scale weighing good days and bad started tipping in the wrong direction, sometimes you had to let the absurdity of it all wash over you. You had to turn the steam valve, release the tension.

Because on those days, the only thing you could control was how you reacted. Sometimes you reacted with tears, and that was okay. But if you never chose to laugh, those days would destroy you as surely as the disease. If Grandpa had the choice, Archie knew he would have chosen for them to laugh, even if only for a moment.

“Great,” Mom said. “Now I have to leave a chocolate on his pillow tonight.”

They burst into laughter again.

“He’ll probably forget and be okay in an hour.” Mom wiped mirthful tears from her eyes, no longer seeming to care about her makeup. “But I can cancel the date if . . .”

“No, you should go,” Archie insisted. He was thinking about the book that had been in the suitcase. The Journal. He knew exactly how to help Grandpa. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”