19

IT WAS A RELENTLESSLY HOT midsummer day in St. Ives, and tourists had hijacked the streets to guzzle overpriced ice cream and sizzle their skin in the stifling heat. It was hard enough to find things to do in the town during low season, but as soon as the summer holidays rolled around, Ollie Moreno was virtually trapped in the prison of his house.

All his other friends had sensible parents, who’d get out of the town as fast as possible and rent their homes to people vacationing to make money off the seasonal tourist hellscape. But not Ollie’s mum. Oh no. Manuela Moreno needed to “mind the art gallery and get those tourists hooked on my work.” Artists and their egos.

He knew he wasn’t doing himself any favors by lying on the white linen of his bedsheets, barely any natural light reaching him through the curtains, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything else. He was sad. He knew it was stupid, yet he couldn’t shake it.

Lottie was practically ignoring him, nothing but curt text replies to tell him she was busy. It was so unlike her, and she didn’t even seem to realize, and, worst of all, he knew she was right. She was busy, and she did have more important things to worry about.

He wished it was only sadness he felt, but there was more, a prickly feeling in his stomach that itched and bit at him. Jealousy.

It had been one of their childhood dreams to go to Japan together one day and go on adventures. To spend a week going to all the nerdy cafés and themed restaurants, then another week exploring the awe-inspiring sites, and now Lottie was there with her new princess best friend and that grumpy bodyguard, and he was just a stupid slug bothering her.

Rolling over, Ollie picked up the newspaper he’d thrown on the floor. There was one more thing troubling him. Lottie had been all over the news. There weren’t many photos, only some grainy shots taken sneakily, but a collection was starting to build. The pictures of her at the summer ball the previous year, the pictures after the fencing tournament, and now this. It was inevitable that their old school friends would see her, but when they did, something miraculous happened. Not a single one of them recognized her.

The closest call was a comment from Charlie saying how the princess reminded him of Lottie, resulting in hiccups of laughter from the girls, especially Kate.

“Can you imagine if that pink-faced airhead was the princess?”

“More likely she would turn into a pumpkin.”

They were mean and stupid. “Ugly stepsisters,” Ollie called them, but he didn’t say anything. Lottie was going off, living a life he could never imagine, growing and blooming into someone new and whole, while he remained here, a mere sapling.

He grabbed his phone and typed out the silliest, most dramatic thing he could think of that might make Lottie laugh.

RIP Ollie Moreno. Died from being left to melt by his ex-best friend in the world’s worst hellhole tourist trap.

Before hitting send he quickly snapped a photo of himself lying against the bed, tongue drooping out of his mouth like he was dead.

There was no response, as expected, and he could practically hear Lottie groaning at how pathetic he was. He already felt stupid for sending it.

Defeated and bored, Ollie picked up a handful of jelly beans from his bedside table, throwing them in the air and catching them in his mouth. It was on the fifth bean, a cotton-candy flavored one, that he said out loud, “I want to grow.”

As he swallowed the jelly bean, his phone buzzed. It was a number he didn’t recognize, but whoever it was certainly seemed to know him.

Hello, Ollie.

Not a question, and yet it had an inquisitiveness to it, like whoever had sent it was testing the water.

Umm, hello?

More typing, the little gray dots watching him in a strangely nerve-racking way.

Ollie, this is Binah :D

All his worries vanished in a puff of curly brown hair and fairground smells, cotton candy and salted caramel like a day at the beach. His whole mind was overcome with her warm hickory-brown skin that glowed when she smiled, the smile that could melt the whole world, curious, warm, and wise. This was what Ollie remembered when he read the name, even though he’d only met her once. He fumbled for a minute, not sure what to say.

Everything OK?

More typing.

We need your help with something but, before I add you to the team, I need to know . . . Will you do anything and everything for the sake of adventure?

Blinking at the message, he wondered if it was a prank. But . . . if I were Lottie, would I take this as a sign?

Yes, he replied.

Binah wrote back almost instantaneously.

That is wonderful news. I’ll add you to the chat, but just so you know, no one else in there knows about Lottie’s secret.

Ollie sat up when he saw the name of the group chat he had been added to.

The chat colors were red, and there were two other people in the group, besides Binah—Percy and Raphael. And at the top of the phone screen, in big bold letters, the group name read: OPERATION: BREAK INTO ROSEWOOD HALL.