33

Jordan stood in the sun-filled backyard. The grass was perfectly manicured, the flower patch was colorful and vibrant, and the freshly painted garden gnome stood watch over a robust herb garden by the kitchen door. This was not the same backyard Jordan stepped into just a week ago.

His attention drifted to a small, bubbling fountain installed near the wall separating the yard from the Okeeyuckachokee Swamp. He stared at the gurgling water sadly.

“Hey there, pal!” Jordan jumped at the sound of his father, who was suddenly standing right next to him. “Sorry if I startled ya—I just wanted to say how proud I am of you. Not only for tackling the challenges you needed to in order to pass your Badger Ranger test, but for applying them so well in a real-life situation. Thank heavens you and your fellow Rangers on that Badgeroobilee heard the distress call from that sinking retirement cruise ship! With all this rogue-wave madness hitting the coast of Europe, those old folks are lucky it wasn’t worse—and luckier still you were there to save them! And then to show real Badger Ranger community-service skills by offering them a place to stay here? Your mom and I couldn’t be more proud.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Jordan said glumly.

“Hey, champ.” Mr. Grimsley’s expression changed. “Why the long face?”

Jordan wiped away a tear so his father wouldn’t see. “It’s . . . a friend of mine. He . . . didn’t make it, Dad.”

“Oh, no.” Mr. Grimsley put an arm around Jordan. “That must be hard, son.” He hesitated a moment. “But not everyone can become a Badger Ranger. I’m sure your friend’s happy you made it through Badger training. And I’ll bet he’s proud to have a friend who’s such a shining example of everything a Badger Ranger stands for: bravery, community—and friendship.”

Jordan looked at the Badger Badge on his shirt.

“Besides,” his father continued. “There’s always next year. Your friend can try out again then!” Mr. Grimsley held up his to-do clipboard and beamed. “Now, then. Don’t know if you noticed, but your mom and I have been busy taking care of business.”

“Yeah, I noticed. The place looks really awesome, Dad.”

Mr. Grimsley flipped through the reams of checked-off chores. “Don’t worry, though. I didn’t forget our project. See?” He flipped to a page and found the only chore that wasn’t crossed out: CUT BACK SWAMP ON BACKYARD WALL.

“I promised you we’d tackle this challenge togeth—” Mr. Grimsley was looking at the far wall. He turned to Jordan. “You tackled it all by yourself! That’s the Grimsley in ya!”

Mr. Grimsley dramatically crossed the item off his list, slapped Jordan on the back, and marched inside. Jordan looked at the wall. His father was right—the snarled, weedy swamp growth that had been creeping over it like a giant squid was completely gone. Jordan knew he hadn’t cut all that swamp growth off the backyard wall. And if his parents hadn’t done it, who had?

“Hey, you brainless guppie.” Jordan spun around to find Abbie glaring at him, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. “We need to talk.”

“Sure. Hey, did you trim the weeds back here?”

“What? No. I’ve been in charge of your lemonade stand, remember?”

“Oh, right. You’ll be happy to hear that you won’t have to do that anymore.”

Abbie’s expression suddenly flashed a hint of disappointment, which she quickly tried to cover. “Oh. Well, I’ve been doing it all week. So I might as well finish doing it the last few days of our cruddy vacation.” Jordan gave her a strange look. “What?” she snapped. “It’s not like I like doing it. I’m doing you a favor. Don’t forget that.”

“Okay . . . but I’m afraid you can’t do it anymore. The lemons are . . . gone.”

“Well, get some more.” Abbie seemed more than a little irked about the thought of losing her lemonade-stand duties.

“I can’t. They weren’t just any lemons. They were, uh, extra-organic.”

“Ha! I knew it! I knew there was something about those lemons! They’re vitamin boosted, or enchanted, or biologically mutated somehow, aren’t they? Every day you were gone, a bag of those supercharged lemons mysteriously showed up on our doorstep. And every day I used ’em, following your dorky friend’s dorky instructions—and the old people went crazy on the stuff!”

“Crazy? Crazy how?”

“Like, they had all this energy, like they were young even though they were old, which was actually cool because they weren’t boring like normal old people. They were actually interesting and had the best stories, like when Mr. Truitt told me about his time in the circus, after the war, when he—” Abbie stopped herself. Jordan narrowed his eyes at Abbie’s oversharing. Abbie never overshared. Abbie never regular-shared.

Embarrassed, she grabbed Jordan’s collar. “Tell me what’s going on—now.”

Jordan smiled. For the first time, he wasn’t afraid of her. He’d been chased through a swamp at night by a Chupacabra—what could she do to him? She let go and looked at him closer. “You seem less twerpy. It’s like you’ve . . . changed.”

“Yeah, there’s been a lot of that going around. C’mon. I wanna show you something.”